


Superstar

by LadySilvertongue, patientalien



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - A Star is Born (2018) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Earth, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Depression, Drug Addiction, Homophobic Language, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Suicide Notes, country music AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2020-12-17 08:07:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 75,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21051092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilvertongue/pseuds/LadySilvertongue, https://archiveofourown.org/users/patientalien/pseuds/patientalien
Summary: In a dive bar, Loki, on the precipice of greatness, and Thor, on the precipice of nothingness, cross paths and unwittingly entwine their fates together. A Star is Born AU, written for the Marvel Big Bang.





	1. Lost Highway

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a labor of love and meticulously whipped into shape by citizenjess. Parts will be updated as edits are made. 
> 
> Please mind the tags; this is not a happy story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA "On the Day We Met, I Went Astray"
> 
> In a dive bar, Loki, on the precipice of greatness, and Thor, on the precipice of nothingness, cross paths, and unwittingly find their fates irrevocably entwined from that point on.

The glare of the spotlights are harsh against his face, the heat of them prompting more beads of sweat to drop from his forehead down to his brows, enough to make his shirtfront cling to the expanse of skin on his chest. Thor grins widely, raising a hand to wave as the last few beats from the drum sounds, as the final seconds of crooning fades from his lips.

“Thank you all!” he says into the mic, and the people gathered erupt.

There’s nothing quite like the sound of a roaring crowd, Thor thinks to himself.

There’s nothing sweeter, other than perhaps the taste of liquor he’ll finally be able to indulge in later. Even sweat-soaked and holding his guitar on stage, with the chanting of the concert-goers for more - ‘encore!’ they scream in unison, all Thor can think about is that drink.

A drink, and maybe a night in the city - there’s absolutely nothing else in his mind save for those two.

Maybe Hela was right.

Or maybe not.

Thor gives in to the demands of the fans he’s got, working the band up for just -

One. Last. Song.

\- - - - -

One. Last. Drink.

That’s it, that’s all Thor asks as he downs another shot of whiskey from his glass that never empties, and his lips that never stops accepting the drink. 

Maybe Hela was right.

Or maybe not.

Thor can stop any time he wants to. 

But really... why would he ever want to?

His life is a never ending party, a constant bacchanalia occasionally interspersed with a concert or a recording session. Why would he ever want to change? 

Besides, you're not a real country star without a vice or two, that Thor's vice is whiskey is becoming something of an open secret, but he shows up. 

He shows up. 

And now, one in the morning and being escorted from the bar, he plans to keep showing up. At the next bar on the block.

A more lavish place than he's used to, not the dusty saloons and hole in the wall taverns of the Nashville circuit. More like something he'd seen in Vegas, or LA. 

Nashville is going to shit. 

Still, late-night open mics are Thor's very favorite post-concert pastime, besides the drinking, and when the two go hand in hand... 

He sings a couple Hank Williams songs, dedicated to Sif and her fucking running off with another man. 

And then he's having just one more drink while he watches the next performer. Lo-something.

And he can't look away.

The man sings something in French that Thor knows, but can’t quite place, lost as he is in his staring - just like every other person in the bar. The man is, after all, quite the alluring sight, with his jet black hair and classy look - and he knows it, judging by the openly seductive prowling he does over the crowd. 

Thor is more enamored with his voice though, rich and resonant, with just a little bit of a croak here and there to make it sound genuine. Not like those synthesized and blended crap they play on the radio nowadays.

This man’s voice is real, captivating in the way only raw talent is.

There are questions, though, too. Why this song, in this place? Loki looks like he should be in some harmonic death metal band, with his pale skin and dark ringed eyes, his all-black ensemble. He’s a mystery, an enigma, a man singing a French love song in a honky-tonk bar. 

Thor feels desire lick at his insides, feels something akin to the burn of whiskey when the man starts brandishing rose petals from his pockets, handing them to some of the patrons who seem to know him.

He continues slinking through the crowd as he sings, and then he’s right there, in front of Thor. 

The man must know the effect he’s got, because he’s sprawling himself on the tabletop, catching Thor’s eyes. He reaches for Thor and drops the rest of his pocketful of red petals on Thor’s lap as he finishes his song.

Thor grins and raises a glass to him, knocking back the entire serving of whiskey.

He waits until the man finishes his set - and he's finished another two whiskeys - and then pushes himself off the bar. He's got two more days in this city before heading to St. Louis - or was it Chicago? - and that voice... that voice.

He finds his quarry on the other end of the bar, giving his order to the bartender. Thor signals for another drink of his own and sidles on over. 

"Hey," he greets. 

"Uh, hey," the other man replies. Up close, he's gorgeous, all green eyes and skin as pale as porcelain. Thor wants to reach out and touch him, see if he'll break. 

"Loved your set," Thor says, working on not tripping over his words, due to both the drink and the proximity to this beautiful talent. "What’s up with the..." He waves his hand vaguely at the man’s ensemble. 

In turn, he gets a raised eyebrow. “What’s up with…?” he counters, waving too at Thor’s stage outfit; nothing too outlandish, but a little more bedazzled than most of the other bar patrons. 

Thor looks down. “Oh,” he says. “I was playin’ a show earlier,” he explains, and then feels the need to boast a little, just in case this man doesn’t recognize him, “at the Opry.” Then, gripped by the kind of certainty that only a good drinking binge can give him, he adds, “You should come tomorrow night.”

A night at the Grand Ole Opry isn't an invitation to be taken lightly. 

Thor still remembers the first time he'd stood in that room, where all of his idols had played. And now, now he's playing there himself. 

Hela can fuck off, Thor is doing just fine. 

The man raises an eyebrow. "I'll think about it," he replies, thanking the bartender as he returns with their drinks. 

"What's your name?" Thor blurts. He hadn’t caught it when it had been announced. 

"Loki Laufeyson. And you're Thor Odinson, aren't you?"

Thor grins. "That I am!" Recognition might even get him what he wants tonight, no need to wait until backstage tomorrow.

The man - Loki, Thor tells himself - smiles pleasantly, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. The derisive look in his eyes is mirrored in his voice,

“Must be nice, to be in the limelight.”

“There are perks,” Thor says with a snort, swishing his glass around and making the liquid inside swirl. He keeps his eyes on Loki while he does so. “Do you have an arrangement to perform here? Can’t imagine why you aren’t doin’ better than this.”

Loki twists around in his seat to look at him, and Thor has to hold his breath as the smoldering gaze is directed at him fully,

“People don’t take particularly well to someone with an attitude problem,” the man says evenly, and Thor can’t help but laugh.

“Can’t be any worse than the rest of us.” Thor gestures to his liquor before he downs it, calling for the bartender to top him up again. “So. Why the bar? S’a good bar, just... why not go bigger?”

Loki gives him a critical look. Or rather, a look that looks like the look Hela sometimes gives him when he says something particularly stupid. "Because I've never had a big shot like you hit on me," he replies, snidely. 

Thor, surprised, barks out a laugh. "Oh! Is that all?" he asks, knowing it's a bullshit answer. If Loki wanted to, he could be right where Thor is. So why doesn't he want to? "Afraid of fame?"

This time, Loki rolls his eyes. "Just not really interested. This is for fun, that's all." 

Thor snorts in disbelief. "You're at a bar at..." he glances at the extremely blurry face of his watch... "two thirty in the morning on what is technically a Thursday. That's not something you're doing for fun." 

The man shrugs and Thor accepts another drink from the bartender, realizing with some dismay that at some point he's going to need to find his way back to the hotel. "I have a weird schedule," Loki explains.

“Mm. Weird enough to be able to fit time to go to my concert tomorrow night?” Thor insists, tilting his head and leaning forward a little bit, testing his boundaries, “I’ll give you a VIP pass and all.”

Loki smirks, sipping at his own beverage coyly, “How about you play something first to convince me it’s worth my while?”

Thor grins. At least he knows for sure now that he’s gotten Loki’s interest, “But that’ll ruin the surprise, don’t you think?” 

“You think I haven’t listened to you?”

“I knew you’d heard of me!” Thor exclaims over the din of the other patrons in the bar, “Come on, say you’ll go.”

Thor doesn’t know why he’s being so pushy, but he chalks it up to Loki’s performance and the sex appeal he can feel is almost oozing from the man. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that he’s very easy on the eyes - the sly teasing and easy way they flirt also just serves to make Thor just that little bit more insistent. Hela would say it’s just another case of Thor falling for a pretty face after a few drinks and a good song. Thor would say this feels different.

“What do you say?”

Loki bites his lip and Thor almost moans in delight. "I'll think about it," he says, draining his drink and walking away before Thor can gather his wits enough to follow.

\-------

Its dawn by the time Thor drags himself back to the hotel, all but falling out of the cab at the feet of his manager. His sister. "Thank you for the disappearing act," she gripes at him as he fumbles back upright. 

"What'd I miss?" he asks, shrugging off her attempts to keep him steady. He doesn’t need her help, he can manage just fine. "Oh, an' put Loki... uhhhhh... Laufeyson... on the VIP list." 

"I'm so done with this shit, Thor," Hela informs him, herding him towards the elevator. Good. Stairs might be a little too daunting. "You have sound check in six hours. Get your shit together." 

Six hours, that's practically a full night's sleep. Hela worries too much, and he tells her so. 

Thankfully, she doesn’t push it. Hela just shoves him inside the elevator and presses for their floor.

Thor leans on the walls until he hears the ‘ding!’ and they’re deposited to the hallway. It’s not a fancy hotel with an elevator service boy twenty-four hours or a richly stocked mini-fridge, but there are a couple of beers that Thor pops open, and just enough give on the mattress to send Thor to sleep faster than he can turn on the TV.

\- - - - -

The hangover that hits him when he wakes up later is massive, making the room spin like it’s nobody’s business and every strand of hair feel like it’s throbbing. The pounding behind his eyes is made worse by the dry, gritty feeling to them, as well as the stale taste that lingers in his mouth. 

For a second, Thor wonders what woke him until he realizes he can hear Hela’s voice grumbling in the bathroom.

Oh.

“Thor!” 

Her sharp voice sends a dagger of pain through his head, and Thor groans, grabbing a pillow to pull over his head. Maybe dying from suffocation would be better than facing her pissy anger.

“I swear to GOD! Get up, we’ve barely got an hour!”

“Mmh- water. And some aspirin,” Thor says, voice muffled by fabric. He refuses to get up until he’s had at least twenty minutes to let the worst of it subside.

The requested items are slammed down on the nightstand right beside his head and his winces into the pillow. "Get. Up. You don't have anybody's good humor to bank on after you were late yesterday."

Oh, right, yesterday. Whoops. Well, showing up late to sound check isn't the same as showing up late to a show. They don't even really need HIM for it, just his guitar. 

Waste of damn time. He takes his time taking the aspirin and drinking the water, and he can practically sense Hela growing more and more agitated as the minutes tick away. 

Finally, it feels like he can move again and he pulls on his jeans and a shirt that he is pretty sure he hasn't worn yet, then his boots. He wants to skip sound check altogether and sleep for a little while longer, but since he's already up... he might as well go.

There's booze in the dressing room, after all.

Thor brings some shades even though the car they’re going to ride will be tinted, and despite the fact that there won’t be stage lights glaring down at him quite yet at the venue. It’s still blazing outside though, and he’s glad to have been able to have enough foresight to have snuck a can of beer from the fridge in his hotel room.

Hela is hissing at someone on the other end of her phone, Thor just leans away from her, pressing his face against the window.

The ride barely takes twenty minutes, and by the time they get there, Thor is just about ready to dive right into their cocktail stand - the can of beer he’d nipped and chugged in the car not even enough to give him a good buzz. 

“Oh, no no no, little brother. You’re coming with me,” Hela scolds, her hands digging into the meat of his arm like claws, “don’t think you can get away that easily.”

“I could if you let go of my arm, you harpy.”

Hela huffs as she drags him along, a group of people already setting up the stage, his guitar in its case on the floor with the instruments of the rest of his band. There’s a stuffy looking man in a business suit that’s barking orders left and right, and to Thor, he looks nothing but out of place in this setting.

He doesn’t like men like those. Always telling him what to do, where to go, how to sing, what to write. It’s infuriating when he _ isn’t _ hungover.

“Do I have to meet him?” Thor grumbles to Hela, and she sighs,

“Just smile and look pretty. And maybe don’t take off your shades. We don’t want him to know just how bad of an alcoholic you are.”

Thor scowls at her assessment of him, twisting his arm to try and release it from her talon-like grip. Hela seems to have wised up to his pre-show rituals, though, because she doesn't let up at all.

With a sigh and realizing he's going to have to actually interact with people besides his sister and the band today (not that he ever pays much attention to the house bands he plays in front of, he's a solo act), Thor slides his sunglasses to dangle off the collar of his shirt, just to spite her.

He lets Hela do the talking, interjecting here and there with a charming smile or quip, but in his mind he's walking away, in his mind he's got another cold beer in his hand. 

He hasn't even realized how little attention he was paying until Hela jabs him in the foot with her stiletto heel. "Good job," she says and Thor can't quite tell if she's being sarcastic or not. 

Thor rolls his eyes, shaking his elbow a little to let Hela know she can let go now and that he won’t run off. She doesn’t, and when Thor glances at her she looks as though she’s annoyed, and expecting a response,

“What?” Thor asks, leaning close and tilting his ear towards her.

Hela’s intense look softens somewhat, and her grip loosens to a more casual hand on his shoulder,

“I asked if you’re ready now.”

Thor gives her a grin, then slips away to pick up his guitar, checking whether the strings are in tune and adjusting the pegs a little until he feels satisfied with the harmony as he strums out some chords.

The sound check goes by uneventfully, Thor playing a couple of songs to Hela’s great disdain, scolding him about showing off and needlessly overusing his voice.

Thor can only snort, then asks her whether he’s free to go grab a drink now,

“Will you listen if I tell you not to?”

“Probably not.”

"You're performing in five hours," Hela reminds him. "Don't overdo it." 

Thor scoffs; overdoing it is kind of his whole thing. "Tell me when Loki gets here," he barks out, already wrapping his hand around the neck of the whiskey bottle. 

Overdo it.

Ha.

\------

Loki Laufeyson picks at the skin of his palm as he waits at the stage door of the Opry. He isn't even sure what he's doing there. He doubts Thor Odinson even remembers inviting him. It certainly hadn’t been what he had expected, getting up on stage last night after his bartending shift had ended. After all the slogging through his day to day drudgery, the last thing he had ever thought would happen would be getting noticed by a major celebrity. 

A huge bearded man with long red hair is standing guard at the door and Loki is a little wary of approaching, but he ends up getting approached first, a blond man with a mustache and soul patch grabbing him by the arm.

Loki pulls away out of habit. "Watch it!" He doesn’t like to be grabbed. 

"You're Loki, right?" the man asks. "Fandral. Thor's gonna be really excited to see you, come on." He drags Loki by the arm into the building, past the dressing rooms and...

Oh, he's standing right offstage. At the Grand Ole Opry. Watching Thor Odinson singing his heart out to a crowd of thousands. Loki feels a swell of excited anticipation build up as he watches. For all his education - Berkley School of Music, the Boston Conservatory - nothing Loki can do quite matches the magic Thor is currently making out on that stage.

Thor glances to the side and lights up when he sees Loki, giving him a little wave. Its endearing, and strangely childlike, and Loki smiles back.

Loki watches as Thor turns back to the crowd and begins to play a little more wildly, a little more freely - the sound of his voice just having that little bit more than before he’d known that Loki was watching. It’s just him trying to flatter himself, but when the song comes to an end, the man bounds over to where Loki is standing, grabbing him up in an unexpected hug.

“You came!” Thor says excitedly, overeager with a bright smile on his face,

“Weird schedule,” Loki answers with a shy smile, not really knowing how to interact with the man now.

Last night it had been easy, Thor Odinson was just another drunk patron in their bar. Now, Thor Odinson is one of the most well known country singers performing for a crowd a hundred times what Loki is used to.

He doesn’t know if he’s envious, or if he feels giddy - because out of all those people, Thor is back here with Loki. Loki, who up until last night had been just another Nashville transplant trying to eek out a living. 

Realistically, Loki acknowledges that perhaps he’s a passing fancy, a one-night fuck before Thor continues his tour, but... 

“I’m so glad to see you here! Listen, I’ll be right back-“ Thor says, reaching over him to a table and grabbing a glass already filled with liquor, then downing it before giving Loki a stupid grin, “-don’t go anywhere, yeah? Stay til’ the end!” 

Before Loki can get a word in, Thor has slammed his glass back on the table and is already back out on the stage.

“Great, isn’t he?” One of the other people tell him, and Loki stares as Thor starts another song,

“He is.”

\-------

Thor runs back to hug him enthusiastically several more times throughout the show, though Loki isn't sure if it's because of him or because of the table full of liquor. Regardless, Loki finds himself enamored. Not that he could actually say it out loud; it might be okay to be gay in other places, but generally not in the country music scene. And it’s not like Thor is _ flirting _ with him or anything. 

Either way, its surreal, and gets even more so when Thor runs back at the end of the show and says, "Encore. Do you know any Hank Williams?"

Loki blinks. "Uh, yeah."

Thor grins, and suddenly Loki is finding himself being dragged onstage by his wrist. "Hey! Okay, so, I'm gonna do something different for this!" Thor shouts into the microphone, his smile blinding. "This is Loki Laufeyson, he's amazing, and we're gonna do a tribute to one of the very greatest artists to ever grace this stage."

He whispers something to the piano player and the first few notes of 'Lost Highway’' starts playing. 

Thor starts it out, his growly voice breaking a bit - he sounds more like Johnny Cash than ol’ Hank - and then Loki looks out at the crowd. He looks at Thor, who is eyeing him expectantly. He looks at the band. 

He grabs the microphone and starts to sing.

It’s exhilarating, having a stage so large and a crowd so generous with their cheers.

Loki tries not to let the anxiety come over him as he sings - it isn’t working so well, and he knows he probably sounds awful, but then Thor is standing right beside him with his guitar, and they’re sharing the mic. Suddenly, Loki doesn’t feel so conscious and just starts pouring his all to the song. 

It’s over too soon.

“Thank you very much!” Thor says into the mic then, the crowd going wild, “let’s give it up to my friend, Loki!”

Thor gestures towards him, and the crowd grows louder. Loki covers the lower half of his face with one hand, hiding his grin - the other hand waving as they slowly exit.

Thor grabs him up with a full belly laugh as soon as they’re backstage, and Loki, despite himself, wraps his own arms around the man’s back.

“You’re amazing! Wasn’t that amazing?” Thor asks, and Loki nods with a laugh of his own.

“It was,” he says when they’ve pulled away, “thank you for giving me this experience. I’ll... it’s a once in a lifetime thing I’ll treasure forever.”

Thor's eyes are sparkling. "Who says it has to be once in a lifetime? Hang out with me. Come tomorrow." He's got his hands on Loki's shoulders and he's just... grinning this giddy grin.

Its infectious. 

Still Loki hesitates. "I - I don't know about that," he stammers, still managing to smile around it, a little embarrassed now. Surely his performance did not warrant this level of excitement. Surely Thor doesn’t feel the same stirring Loki does. 

"Come out with me and the boys, at least," Thor prods, accepting a beer from someone whose entire job seems to be handing Thor beer, and draping his arm over Loki's shoulders as if they'd known each other for years. "Let me talk you into it," he adds. 

Loki sighs, realizing there's not really any getting out of it, and... well... it is a once in a lifetime opportunity. "Yeah. Okay, sounds fun."

"Ha! You've got no idea!" Thor crows, and they're off.

They’re herded out and the fans are all trying to catch Thor’s attention, jostling and pushing at each other so much that Loki would have been swallowed up if the man didn’t have a possessive arm wrapped around his waist. Loki’s got no doubt that he has a smug smirk plastered on his face as some of the people ask who he is.

Thor doesn’t answer them, just continues to pull them through until they step into a bus. 

Turns out, Thor’s idea of fun is to drink himself stupid, which isn’t really surprising to Loki, and Loki finds for once - he doesn’t mind. He even decides to drink a little too, not enough to muddy his thoughts, but enough to loosen up.

They bar hop until the early hours of morning when Thor’s manager, who Loki learns is also his half-sister, puts her boot down and tells them it’s time to head back to the hotel.

Loki agrees. Thor can barely walk.

They arrive at the hotel, and Loki has to help Hela in dragging the man up to his own room.

"Mmm, stay with me, Loki," Thor slurs, his head lolling back as Loki and Hela drag him down the hall. Loki holds his weight while Hela opens the door.

“I have to go to work,” Loki protests, but it’s a little half-hearted. He has the chance to spend the night with Thor Odinson, platonically or otherwise, and he’s making excuses about a job he hates? 

Thor pouts, draping his arms over Loki’s shoulders and leaning into him. Loki can smell the hot wash of booze on his breath and the tang of his aftershave. His bright blue eyes, bleary as they are, bore into Loki’s own. “Stay with me,” Thor repeats. 

Beside Thor, Hela rolls her eyes. “Your new toy has to work, baby brother,” she says, and the reference to him as a _ toy _ makes something strange flip flop in Loki’s gut. He’s not sure if he’s insulted, or flattered. He decides to be both, and then decides to make up his mind. 

“It’s okay, I’ll stay,” he says, and Hela just shrugs, looking bored, as if she’s done this a million times. She probably has, Loki thinks. 

"Good luck," she says, "make sure he's on his side, and he needs to be at sound check at one." Before Loki can ask any further clarifying questions, Hela is out the door. 

It's a once in a lifetime experience, he tells himself, and gets Thor onto the bed. 

"You're stayin'?" Thor asks, fumbling with a cigarette and his lighter but eventually can't make it happen so he tosses them aside and flops back on the bed. 

"I guess I have no choice now, do I?" Loki replies with a shrug. "If I'm gonna get you there on time for sound check." 

Screw it. Once in a lifetime, and Thor's leaving town tomorrow anyway.

May as well.

Thor gives him that stupid grin again, then tugs him down to sit on the bed. Loki follows obligingly, suppressing his own smile as the other man starts tugging him down. He’s so loose-limbed that he just ends up palming Loki’s face though,

“Mmh, you’re so pretty,” Thor hums, “n’ talented. Sound so good.” 

Loki laughs a little, pulling the other’s hands off and settling them on his lap, leaning forward until the blue of Thor’s eyes are swallowed up by his pupils. He’s definitely aroused. Loki likes knowing that he has that effect on the other man, though he still isn’t entirely certain what Thor _ wants _ from him. 

He pulls away abruptly, making Thor start blinking blearily, frowning. 

“Tease,” the man tells him, 

Loki grins, “I’m a third date kind of guy.” It’s a bold statement, perhaps, to proclaim this a date, but he wants to see how Thor reacts, even drunk as he is. As it turns out, Thor isn’t as put off by the idea as Loki expects him to be. 

“Mm- I’ll remember that- This’s our second, yeah? Mm- definitely gonna getcha.” 

"Well, you're more than welcome to try," Loki replies with a laugh. He'll give this one more night, just until Thor leaves town. 

\-------

The alarm goes off earlier than Loki would have expected, but Thor's only acknowledgement of it is to throw it across the room. "Goddamnit, don’t wake me up til’ we're in the fucking car," he growls into his pillow. 

"You should take a shower," Loki suggests, pulling the sheets up around his waist, though he still has his boxers on. Thor doesn't smell BAD, per se, just like he had spent the night going from one smoky bar to another. Plus it might wake him up a bit. 

"Take one with me," Thor requests, though the tone doesn't quite hit the flirtatious lilt Loki has started growing accustomed to. For all his obvious drinking issues, Thor was fun to be around last night, and the night before if Loki were to be honest. He was a friendly and exuberant drunk, at least, and really good at getting his way. 

Which is exactly what happens now, as Loki helps him without making it seem like he's helping him to the bathroom. Thor still seems drunk as he stumbles out of his clothes, hitting the glass door of the shower stall hard with his shoulder and giggling as he leans down to pull off his socks. 

"Shiiiit," Thor laughs as he straightens, leaning backwards a little. "What was I drinkin' last night?" He is absolutely stunning, nude.

“The entire bar,” Loki answers with a snort, savoring the sight.

Not like Thor notices anyways as he giggles and starts the shower with his discarded clothes still at the floor of the stall.

Loki picks them up and plants them onto the toilet, staring as Thor stands humming under the water, eyes closed. He’s chiseled and toned in a way Loki suspected, but hadn’t really given much thought to. Looking at him now though, he can see that he hadn’t developed a beer belly with all his indulgence. Quite the opposite.

“S’you just gonna stare or you comin’ in?” 

Loki snaps out of his thoughts when Thor leans his head on the glass, a lopsided smile once again on his face. He smiles so freely and openly.

“Right. Uh, maybe after you’re done.”

“So skittish,” Thor chuckles, leaning forward, “c’mere. I gotta tell you somethin’ first before you go.”

Loki does, cocking an eyebrow and waiting. Thor seems to be weighing his words, but he doesn’t say anything at all.

Thor kisses him - just a peck on his lips, really, but it catches him off guard and Loki feels his cheeks heat up.

“What was that for?” Loki asks dumbly,

Thor winks, and just like that, it's as though he’s back to his default, “To convince you to stay.”

Well, how could Loki say no after that? 

\------

Thor is elated to find Loki still in bed the next day, and even more thrilled when Loki agrees to spend the day at the Opry with him. He isn't sure why - maybe it's just flat out loneliness, maybe it's just wanting that little thrill of giving someone a chance he had been lucky enough to get. 

Regardless, having Loki shuffle him through showering and getting dressed - without it even feel like he's being herded - makes the whole process much more fun, and they even make it to the car with time to spare.

Thor is still horribly hungover, his sunglasses on and his cowboy hat pulled down low over his face, a beer in his hand, but he's on time. Early, even. That's got to count for something. 

"I want to bring you on before the encore," he tells Loki once they're in the back of the car. Thor has his head tilted back against the headrest, eyes closed. "You know 'Thunder Rolls'?" It's one of his favorite covers to do in a show; most of the time he does his original stuff, but there's a time and a place for an excellent cover.

He isn't sure if Loki responds, his ears are still ringing from the show and he's just so goddamn hungover it's hard to focus. "Do you?" he prompts.

"He said yes," Hela says from the front seat, raising her voice enough for him to hear her.

Thor grumbles a little at her interruption, taking a gulp from his beer. He takes another long drink, completely forgetting about his train of thought until he turns back to Loki, who looks a little bit perplexed and - curious?

Oh. Right.

“I have this thing in my ear,” Thor starts, gesturing to the side of his head, then shrugs in dismissal. He doesn’t like talking about it. Doesn’t like the implication of what could be looming in the distance for him, when - no... if his hearing goes. 

“Are you... alright?”

Thor grins, bumping their knees together, “I’m fine, really. So, since you know the song... do you want to get back on stage with me?” 

Loki looks a bit uncomfortable, glancing at Hela in the driver’s seat, and Thor just knows the man won’t let it go,

“It’s uh, tinnitus. It’s not that bad, really- now come on, sing it with me, alright?” To turn the attention away from himself Thor leans towards Loki, crossing his ankle over the other knee, “Or do you have any songs of your own? Something tells me you’re a songwriter.”

Thor watches Loki tense slightly, and laughs. "Come on, don't tell me you just play other peoples' shit," he says. 

"I don't," Loki says, sounding a little defensive. "I... just... don't have anything finished and you're-" 

Thor chuckles throatily, cracking into another beer and lighting a cigarette despite Hela's growl of protest. "I'm a guy who wants to hear what you have to say," he replies with a shrug, tilting his hat up just a little bit so he can see Loki's face - and read his lips - a little more clearly. 

"I dont know..." Loki murmurs, "I don't have anything ready..." God, the poor fucker sounds terrified. 

Thor shrugs. "We'll figure it out," he replies, and closes his eyes for the rest of the ride.

They get to the venue in relative silence, Loki being pushed into it, Thor not really in the right mood to try to shake him back out. Once they’re on the stage and Thor’s got his guitar though, the world fades away and he’s in another world entirely.

Somewhere nice and safe, with his music in his ears and nothing else holding him back.

He finishes one song, then calls for Loki to come over from where he’s seated at the front row - scribbling away furiously at a notebook on his lap. Thor calls for the man again, on the mic this time and startles him, then leans down to help Loki hop onto the stage when he comes over.

“Wanna sing something?” Thor asks with a grin, plucking his guitar in familiar patterns he composed, “I’m still up for that original if you want.”

Loki is scowling a little, but he clears his throat, “How about a warm up song?” 

Thor shrugs and strums a few chords of one of his own most popular songs, "Suit yourself," he says, pushing the microphone closer to Loki so they can both sing into it at once. 

And boy, can Loki sing. Thor nearly stops playing and singing himself when he hears Loki's voice again; obviously he hadn't been abusing his vocal chords the way Thor does, because there is no breaking, no vocal fry, just pure music. 

It's heaven, singing with Loki, and the song ends too soon. "Come on," he cajoles. "Show me what else you've got." He's intrigued now, and fixated. 

He hands over his guitar, Loki seeming incredibly hesitant to take it at first, and heads over to the drink table just offstage. "Come on, for me?" he calls back when Loki is still standing there after Thor has poured himself a whiskey.

Loki clears his throat, drapes the guitar strap over his shoulder, and strums it experimentally. He looks over at Thor with what could only be described as a look of absolute terror. 

Thor swaggers back onstage, and hands his whiskey to Loki. "Here. You need this more than I do." Well, he still is going to pour himself another one, but he's making a point right now. 

Loki grabs the glass and swigs it down, coughing harshly for a moment. 

Then, he starts to play, and everything else fades away.

Thor can’t help but stare open-mouthed, gawping at the other man as he croons his own words and lets the world hear it - well, let’s Thor and whoever else is present hear it.

When Loki finishes it off, Thor is still staring, a bit starstruck and dreamy-eyed, and all he can say is,

“Wow.”

Loki huffs out a nervous laugh, head down and plucking at the strings even as his other palm mutes it.

“I told you I didn’t have any finished stuff.”

Thor shakes his head vehemently, because that - that was perfection. He takes a breath and places both hands on Loki’s shoulders. He repeats another ‘wow’, because what else can Thor say? Loki’s lyrics and sound resonated so deeply with him he wonders if it weren’t made for him.

“When’d you write that?” Thor asks, eyeing the edge of the small notebook peeking from Loki’s pants, “That song for me?”

Loki shrugs, still looking down bashfully, “About you. About me, too, I guess?”

Thor raises both eyebrows, “Well. It’s pretty fuckin’ good.”

Loki shakes his head, looking embarrassed again. "I wrote it literally while you were tuning up," he says, as if that makes it somehow LESS impressive. 

"You're singing it tonight," Thor says decisively. He's not going to allow any argument, either. Loki needs to be singing his songs, and if Thor can give him a place to do it, well...

"No, it's not-"

"We got five hours until the show," Thor points out, lighting up a smoke and pushing his sunglasses up a bit. Sure, they're inside, and the stage lights aren't on yet, but boy is this a rough morning. "We'll smooth it out, but you're playin' this." 

Loki is... Thor hasn't played with another person on a regular basis in years, but he could imagine playing with Loki for a while. 

\-----

Loki is in equal parts exhilarated and terrified as Thor grabs his notebook and sits down at the piano. Even only hearing the song once, he plays through it flawlessly, adding a few flourishes here and there. 

It's the first time Loki has seen him in work mode, rather than performance or party mode, and its... strikingly ordinary, despite the talent being shown off. 

And those are HIS words, his chords. His melodies that Thor is playing with and perfecting.

If Loki thought it felt surreal then, it feels more so now as Thor sings it and asks for his opinion on some of the improvs, as he asks Loki to sing the main melody while he sings the second voice. In his own head, his own rendition and first play-through was plain and a bit off-kilter, a bit croaky. As Thor sings it and adds his own voice, it becomes something... infinitely more.

It’s not like Loki dislikes his own stuff, but... Thor somehow manages to actually see and hear how Loki can imagine it when perfected.

Thor, who is most definitely still hungover and already a good deal drunk again, managed to see Loki’s music for what he wants it to be - and just from listening to it once too. Thor, who is going to let him sing his music - LOKI’S music! - in Thor’s own concert. 

It’s terrifying.

What if it’s not well-received?

What if there’s a negative backlash on Thor because it’s not as good? 

What if people won’t care what he has to say because he’s a nobody? 

“Hey? You in there?”

Loki snaps out of his daze as the other man waves a hand over his eyes, shifting a little and looking away. He picks at the skin of one hand,

“What if they don’t like it?”

Loki stumbles onto the piano seat beside Thor, a hand on the keys making a horrid noise as Loki tries to steady himself, 

“Listen to me, that was one of the most honest things I’ve heard in a while. More than any of the recent shit I’ve been putting out. They’re not going to like it, Loki. They’re gonna love it.”

\--------

The crowd is cheering, chanting, the lights are blinding, and Thor is blind drunk. Fuck. He had thought spending the time helping Loki perfect the song would keep him a little more even, but... well, it's fine. Not like he can't perform like this. 

And perform he does, doing half his set before pulling Loki on stage with him. "I don't know if any y'all were here last night, but I brought my friend Loki again tonight and we're gonna sing a song he wrote, and I sure hope y'all like it as much as I do."

He grins at Loki's blurry form and tries to hand him the guitar. Loki looks a little hesitant, still clearly as nervous as can be. Thor has completely forgotten what it feels like to be nervous, but he does need to sit down. "Piano," he tells Loki, and stumbles his way to the instrument.

Luckily, Thor can play the piano in his sleep, and already has Loki's song etched into his memory. Together they sing, and Thor doesn't need to even hear what's coming out of the speakers to know they sound amazing together.

The audience seems to think so too, because they give Loki just as much applause as Thor ever gets. "See," he says with a grin, then turns back to the audience, pulling the microphone with him. "He's great, right? You want more?"

A roar from the crowd. Thor manages to get to his feet and pick his guitar back up, using the mic stand to hold himself upright for a moment. "So. Uh, this song isn't either of ours, but we sure do like it."

We.

As if they're a duo now.

Well. 

He wouldn't mind it, maybe. He strums out the opening to 'Thunder Rolls' and lets the adrenaline of performing carry him through to the end of the show.

As usual, the response they get is - like the title of their last song - rolling thunder. The cheers and howls of fans carry even through the haze of alcohol and the ringing in Thor’s ears, carries even when they make their way off stage and into the relative peace of the hallways leading back out. It makes the wash of euphoria settle in him even though he’s fallen probably a dozen times now.

Loki looks happy too, giddiness and excitement oozing off of him if his chirpy exclamations of ‘oh my god!’ and ‘that was insane!’ are anything to go by.

Thor can’t help but mirror it, giggling as he stumbles yet again. This time though, he drags Loki down with him. They sprawl on the floor together, Loki half on top of Thor and already trying to pull him upright again, but they’re both laughing.

Yes. Yes, Thor can get used to this.

“Travel with me,” Thor offers, grinning as Loki stops his efforts, face morphing into one of confusion, then surprise, and more that Thor really can’t decipher

“What?”

“You an’ me- travelin’ an’ singin’. We could sing more of your songs. Pretty fuckin’ good,” Thor manages to slur out, blinking rapidly to make Loki refocus, “Say you’ll do it- you got somethin’, Lo. You got somethin’ t’say. Question is are ya brave enough to sing it?”

Loki’s face turns pensive for a moment, and Thor takes the opportunity to push himself upright, sitting up with the man still on his lap. Thor leans forward and presses their lips together, his hand snaking to hold the nape of the other’s neck. When they pull away, Loki’s eyes are hooded, and Thor’s lips taste like how Loki feels.

“Say yes.”

A cheshire grin spreads on Loki’s face, and he nods, just a dip of his chin first before he’s doing it so hard Thor feels dizzy just looking at him. 

“Great,” Thor says, holding the man’s face between his hands and crashing their lips together again.

\--------

Loki isn't sure why he's doing this, what kind of crazy spell Thor has cast on him that made him say yes, made him agree to... what did he just agree to?

"Come on, then," Hela says, "on the bus, we're driving all night."

"My things..." Loki suddenly thinks to say, pulling Thor to his feet. Thor wraps his arm around Loki's shoulders, kissing his cheek, his boozy breath making Loki feel a little giddy, this is really happening. That's really Thor Odinson and he’s going on tour with him and singing his songs and everything is a little... much. 

"Oh, we'll jus' swing by yer place on the way outta town," Thor says as if it's the most natural thing in the world. 

"Thor..." Hela tries, but Thor ignores her, yelling slurred, barely intelligible instructions to the rest of his entourage.

And just like that, Loki's life changes.


	2. Hey Good Lookin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aka "If you wanna have fun, come along with me". Loki learns well both the peaks and valleys of a professional - and increasingly personal - partnership with Thor Odinson.

Thor does most of his writing on the road. Holed up in the back of the bus, chain-smoking and working through dirty things like feelings and emotions, pouring them into his songs like beer in a glass. 

But now he's got a writing partner. Now he and Loki write together on the long stretches of highway between Thor's alcohol and tour-exhaustion-induced naps.

He can tell though, that Loki is fighting the urge to tell him off for his vices. Always having that disapproving look on his face whenever Thor pitches another emptied bottle of bourbon to the trash and opening a new one in the same breath.

Thor doesn’t mind, as long as Loki doesn’t actively start scolding him along with Hela. Though, with their shared looks and hushed conversations it is a likely possibility that it’ll soon be the norm.

They don’t stop him now though, as he works his way through another bottle, another pack of cigarettes. They don’t tell him to stop, because Thor is writing down an idea now that’s been eluding him for weeks. They don’t stop him because he’s making magic with his words and his tunes.

Nobody ever tries to stop him.

\- - - - -

“Shit,” Hela hisses as Thor shudders and heaves into the toilet again at a gas station they’ve stopped at.

It’s disgusting, the grime on the walls and the smell is enough to ward off anyone else, but not Thor - and he’s only making it smell even worse with his puke. Loki is standing just outside the stall with a bottle of water, anxiously biting his nails.

Thor retches again, vomit sloshing into the yellow-stained porcelain. 

“You’re a real piece of work, little brother,” Hela hisses, but she brushes his hair from his face anyways. She can’t do anything for the flecks of puke clinging to Thor’s whiskers though - not until he’s done and they can get to the sink to wash it off. 

“Fffuck off- m’fine-“ 

Loki snorts, and Hela is grateful that Thor’s current little fixation agrees with her view on things. She doesn’t really like disruptions to their plans, but she also can’t deny the other man has talent. Besides, Loki has made Thor sing like Thor hasn’t sung in a long, long while. Hela would never say it out loud, but it’s relieving that Thor at least seems happier - if only her little brother would stop being a little shit and didn’t drink so much.

Its asking a lot, she knows, especially since Thor seems to relish knowing he's walking in the footsteps of his idols, despite the fact that most of said idols didn't exactly live long lives. 

Still, he's working, he's writing some of the best stuff in recent memory, and that's more than she can say for how he's been directly leading up to Loki's arrival. 

"Let me know if you're planning on dying of alcohol poisoning so I can let the venue know," she drawls, propping her foot against the wall and inspecting her nails. "This is extremely boring for the rest of us, little brother."

"Nobu'y's makin' you s'ick 'round," Thor informs her from his position draped over the toilet bowl. "Lemme 'lone."

Great, belligerently drunk is definitely going to make an impression on the producers set to meet them in Cincinatti because Thor fucking drunk dialed one of them at three in the goddamn morning two days ago demanding Loki be given a recording contract. 

"Don't let him drink any more," she hisses to Loki. "For the love of god." 

"Yes. Because I control his every move," Loki responds in kind.

“You have him wrapped around your finger, and if you haven’t realized that already, maybe you aren’t as brilliant as we thought you were.”

Hela reaches down and pats Thor’s head, the only affection she’ll openly show, dropping a bit of her guard when Thor hums and closes his eyes against the scrape of her nails along his scalp. What can she say? Hela’s got a soft spot for her overgrown puppy for a brother,

“Clean up,” she tells him, pulling him up and leaning him against the stall, then motions for Loki to help, “I expect him clean and rested when I come back.”

“Where are you going?”

\- - - - -

Loki doesn’t get an answer, but is left alone with Thor whose head is still lolling about, and who’s making gagging noises still. Loki had known that agreeing to this meant a share in looking after Thor, but he didn’t think it would be this bad.

Well.

Who is he kidding? He saw how Thor knocked those drinks back the first two nights he’d known the man. If Loki hadn’t anticipated this, maybe Hela was right about him not being all that. Her assessment of Thor’s apparent devotion to him is false though - mostly.

Maybe. Loki doesn’t really want to delve too deeply into it.

“You gonna help me, or am I going to have to drag you to the room your sister rented out?” 

Thor grunts, wrapping his arm around Loki’s shoulder, the other he braces against whatever surface he can lean on, “M’good. S’all good. M’aight.”

Loki bites his lip, “You’re not. That’s alright - I’ll help you sober up.”

That gets a bit of a chuffing laugh from Thor that turns into a coughing fit and then into renewed gagging that Loki is a little afraid will turn into a new round of puking. But instead, Thor tilts far to the side, then back against Loki. "Bein' sober's no fun," he informs Loki, struggling to put one foot in front of the other. 

"And choking on your own sick is?" Loki snaps back. "Come on, move your feet." 

Thor clumsily perches his cowboy hat- ridiculous thing, Loki knows it's part of the image, like everything else, and like everything else, it seems a little fake. Like there's something more to Thor besides... all of this. 

But right now what there is to Thor is 6'2", 240 pounds of lean muscle and no motor skills whatsoever. It takes a huge amount of effort to drag him back to the bus and from there Volstagg, the general muscle of the group, helps carry him to the motel room, slung over one shoulder like a sack of flour singing off-key.

Singing one of Loki's songs off-key.

Loki feels his heart melt a little at that, and Hela’s words come back to him again. For the life of him though, he can’t think of any reasons for why they could be true. Sure, they’d fucked around a bit now, and Loki is starting to get a sense of just how invested Thor is in keeping him as a permanent fixture, but... but - the kind of thing Hela was suggesting… well.

Ridiculous.

They check in the front counter, where the bored-looking lady hands them the keys, and Loki leads the way inside.

“Where do you want him?” Volstagg asks, and Loki just motions towards the bed, thanking the man when he leaves.

Thor is looking at him when Loki spares him a glance, the look strangely intense despite his current condition. Loki rolls his eyes a little when the man gives him a grin, as though expecting Loki to just come over and crawl all over him.

Perhaps Loki should try out Hela’s little piece of wisdom.

He saunters to the bed, pulling off his shirt and undoing his jeans. Thor's grin grows wider as he rolls onto his back, splaying his limbs across the mattress.

Loki crawls on top of him, tugging his puke and beer-stained shirt over his head and carefully pulling Thor's pants off. Thor helps as much as he's able, sitting up and leaning forward, both arms slipped over Loki's shoulders.

"Love you," Thor slurs, and kisses him. 

Loki keeps Thor occupied until the other man passes out cold halfway to completion, Loki's hand still wrapped around his softening cock. 

He waits until he's sure Thor is out before he removes his hand and heads to the shower.

\-------

"Up." 

Thor moans and pulls the covers up tighter over his head. "No," he moans. 

"Up." 

"Drink first," Thor counters, fumbling around on the nightstand, trying to find his cigarettes without moving from his nest of blankets. 

"No."

"You're being a real cunt, you know," Thor informs Loki, sourly.

Thor feels Loki's hands grasping his own searching one, kneading his palm and oh- it feels good. The man's hands find their way up his arm, and soon they're on his shoulder, coaxing warmth into the limb that's still half asleep. Thor pulls the covers down, blinking blearily, 

"Mmh, what are you doin'?"

"You don't like it?"

Thor growls a little when Loki pulls away, reaching out to grab his hand and placing them on his head. He hums again in satisfaction when Loki's spindly fingers start scraping his scalp, carding through his hair.

Thor closes his eyes in contentment.

"Up. Time to get ready."

"Mmhm. Five more minutes."

"Thor," Loki scolds lightly as the bed dips with his added weight, and then Thor feels the soft press of the man's lips against his own. He feels the other pepper his cheeks and forehead with yet more, and Thor grins.

Yeah. He can live with this.

"Up. Shower."

Thor sighs, acquiescing, stretching a little and leaning his head on Loki's shoulder. The man is already dressed and prepared. Pressing his own lips to the side of the Loki’s neck, Thor stumbles up to his feet, and he mourns the loss of the other’s company in the shower. 

\-------

Hela looks approving when they meet her at the car half an hour later. Thor is clean, his clothes are clean, and he is, while hungover, sober. Loki can't help feeling a surge of pride in his good work. Maybe Hela was right. Maybe Thor really is smitten with him. 

"What's the meeting about?" Loki asks as they pile into the car, Volstagg behind the wheel and Hela in the front passenger seat.

"My foolish little brother wants to have you along for the rest of the tour, performing, which means there need to be agents and contracts and label execs involved," Hela explains, and Loki pinches the palm of his hand hard enough to draw blood. 

This is getting very real. Suddenly, his presence in Thor's life isn't just a passing fancy, isn't some random fling. And okay, maybe Thor's judgement is a little... impaired, at times (most times), but Hela doesn't seem to be fighting it. 

If it was a bad idea, she would be fighting it, wouldn't she?

Thor snorts from where he's leaning his head against the window, hat over his face. "Bunch of bullshit, is what it is," he grumbles. 

"Somebody woke up grumpy," Loki tells Hela, making sure Thor can hear him.

"Darling, that's his default," Hela answers, and Thor flips her off from where he's slumped.

Loki laughs a little at Thor's expense, taking the man's hand into his own as he leans back against the headrest of his own seat. He can hardly believe that this is really happening to him, it still feels like maybe he might wake up any second now, but he doesn't.

What happens is they meet with the agents, he plays his some of his compositions for them with Thor by his side to encourage him, and at the end of it they offer a signing for his own contract that's separate from the thing he's doing with Thor.

It's... Impossible.

This stuff should only happen in movies, and yet his name and his signature is inked at the bottom of a record deal with a talent manager who's entirely going to be focusing on getting Loki's music everywhere.

\- - - - -

"I still can't quite believe it- I mean... I mean, are you here? Is this really happening? Because I feel like I might need witnesses to know if this is all real or... Something," Loki rambles, they've just finished a concert and have been lounging at one of the break rooms that have been prepared to Thor's liking.

Meaning, there's copious amounts of alcohol, and Thor's already filled to the gills with it and still going. Loki sighs when Thor topples over sideways on the couch, his cigarette slipping from his fingers.

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah," Loki sighs, leaning over to bring Thor upright again.

The man starts a coughing fit that's enough to drag him back awake, and Thor starts mumbling, looking around before bending down and picking up the cigarette he'd dropped. He takes a long drag from it, grabbing another bottle of whiskey on the table and unscrewing it before drinking directly from the bottle.

Loki winces, okay, maybe Thor is drinking a little bit more than usual. He slides off the arm of the couch and slips his hand around Thor's arm, pulling him close,

"You alright?"

"M'fine. M'great, acc'tially. Doin' jus' ffffffuckin' 'mazing."

Loki furrows his brow at just how muddled Thor's speech is, how limp-limbed he is. "Yeah, you sound fucking amazing," he says, plucking the cigarette from Thor and stubbing it out in the overflowing ashtray. 

"Damn fuggin' rihd I soun' fuck...ing... 'mayzin'," Thor replies, giving Loki a sloppy kiss on the cheek, leaning against him heavily. 

Loki wonders if he's intentionally being a cliche, or if Thor is truly unaware of how unsurprising his behavior is. He won't bring up Thor's obvious jealousy in front of everyone else, this is supposed to be a party, but he wants to, because he wants to clear the air. 

Later. Maybe when Thor is sober. 

"Here, drink this," Hela demands, walking over and shoving a glass of water into Thor's hand. He immediately drops it. "Motherfucking Christ," she snarls to herself, pulling out her phone and walking away. 

"Are you okay, really?" Loki presses as Thor's head falls against his chest and then jerks back up. 

"Mmmhmmm, par'y's jus' gettin' star'ed!" As if he hadn't been "partying" since before sound check today. 

It's getting tedious, and it's getting in the way.

Thor pats his face, and Loki scrunches his nose in disgust when he feels how sticky it is with... Whatever the fuck it is - plus the smell of alcohol and the man's cigarettes is strong enough to make Loki feel nauseous.

"Alright. Come on. Up you get," Loki says with another sigh.

Hooking his arms under Thor's armpits, Loki braces his feet and pulls him forward, almost staggering back and crashing onto his ass on the coffee table. Thor is heavy, and of no help as Loki brings him over to the other side of break room, propping him against the counter.

"Hey. Look at me," Loki urges, holding Thor's chin between his thumb and index finger, "why you drinking so much, huh? More than usual."

Thor bats his hands away and grumbles as he sways. Loki just forces the man's head up again, eyes narrowing on the way Thor won't even look at him. He really is jealous.

"You got nothing to be worried about, you know that, right?"

Thor blinks, one eyelid lowering slightly askew of the other, and he gives Loki the tiniest little sliver of a smile. "'Course I don't," he says, weaving in place even as Loki keeps a hold of his chin. "I got... I've... Imma fuckin' Grammy w-winner. Got, got fuckin' pla'num albums. I'm doin' jus' fiiiinnnnne." 

"You're a fucking mess, is what you are," Loki hisses, realizing that he sounds an awful lot like Hela in that moment. 

Thor rolls his bleary, bloodshot eyes. "S'no pro'lem," he informs Loki in probably the most unconvincing argument in the history of alcoholism. 

"It's becoming one," Loki murmurs, though 'becoming' is something of a misnomer, because clearly this has been going on since well before Loki came on board. "You haven't finished a song in weeks." 

"Can' for...force it," Thor says, which is such bullshit because he hasn't even been trying since Loki got signed. Loki misses the writing sessions, the creative flow between them. 

"Yeah, okay, why don't we just head back to the bus. Aren't we driving to Portland tonight?" 

"Fug f'I know," Thor laughs.

"Thor," Loki says firmly, digging his fingers now into the meat of the man's shoulders, "listen to me, damn it."

"Wha?" Thor grumbles, trying to shrug away, but Loki's got a firm grasp,

"I don't like it when you drink this much. I don't like seeing you like this," Loki intones, frowning again when the man stares dully in response, "you know that I care about you, Thor. And like I said, this is becoming a problem. I'm worried about you."

Thor leans forward, resting his forehead against Loki's own, and Loki closes his eyes. They stay like that for a while, both of them going still and just breathing each other in - even though all Loki can smell is the whiskey in Thor's breath.

"Okay," Thor says after a while, hands on Loki's hips. It sounds like a lie, but Loki gives Thor the benefit of the doubt on this one, "I love you." 

Loki tenses at that, pressing their lips together in a brief kiss instead of answering, "Alright. Let's head back to the bus? Let you sleep this off?" 

This time, Thor doesn't argue. 

\------

The concert at Portland ends with a literal bang, but not the fun kind.

Thor, once again drunk out of his mind, had fallen off of the stage and hit his head pretty damn hard - hard enough that the skin at the back had split.

It scared the living shit out of the fans in the front row, more so when the blond stood up and palmed the back of his head, then like an idiot, raised his hands up to placate the crowd and reassure them, only for it to have the complete opposite effect when one of his hands came up bloody. 

Loki himself was scared shitless, because by the time they’d gotten backstage, the blood was staining the back of Thor’s shirt. 

To say people are displeased would be an understatement, what with the concussion Thor’s been diagnosed with.

Hela is an absolute terror - more so than usual. Loki likes to think that it’s because of her worry for her younger half-brother. Loki himself is snappier with everyone else, and Thor is...

Thor is still being a selfish asshole that keeps drinking.

"You have a concussion!" Loki exclaims, yanking the beer bottle out of Thor's hand, furious that the other man is not seeming to take this remotely seriously.

As if to prove it, Thor gives him a sunny smile. "No harm done," he informs Loki, reaching back to press tenderly at the welt that's raised on the back of his head. "Not even canceling tomorrow's show! I'm fine!"

Thor's complete inability to see any of his behavior as anything other than charming and fun is really starting to grate on Loki's nerves. "You're not fine. And we OUGHT to cancel!" 

Even without a concussion, Thor really isn't in any condition to keep performing. "Bullshit," Thor snorts. "Gimme me my beer." 

"You've got a real problem, you know that?" Loki snaps. 

Thor gives him a look that suggests Loki is the stupidest person he's ever met. "No, I don't."

Loki grits his teeth, then upends the bottle and lets the liquid splash onto the floor of the bus, not really caring about the consequences. Thor lurches up, face contorted into a scowl, and Loki hisses and pushes him off.

They end up in a heap on the floor until Volstagg pulls over to haul Thor off of Loki, the man still huffing a little as he tilts the now-empty bottle to his lips.

“I thought we reached an understanding on this, Thor! But you’re not going to put any effort in at all, are you?!” Loki yells.

He’s angry enough to try to give Thor a wild little kick that Volstagg blocks, tutting at them both and scolding them like misbehaving children - sending them to different corners of the bus. Loki stalks off towards the front and sits down beside the driver’s seat.

Fucking Thor and his fucking stupid, stubborn, arrogant head.

There’s not a lot of room, so Loki can hear Thor’s grumbling and Volstagg’s voice as well. It isn’t long before the large man is sitting beside him.

“He’s asleep.” 

“Fuck him. He’s an arrogant, self-absorbed, selfish asshole.”

Volstagg huffs out a chuckle. "You're not wrong," he says, leaning back in the driver's seat, seeming content to stay stationary for the time being. "But you're also new."

Loki bristles. "Not really," he counters. He's been touring with Thor for months, now, surely that gives him a little bit of pull when it comes to... making Thor behave. 

Volstagg places a meaty hand on Loki's shoulder. "Trust me," the big man says. "You haven't seen anything yet."


	3. Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA "If She Drinks, Well, You Taught Her, and if She Smokes, You Showed Her How"
> 
> Thor spirals further downwards into his vices, and Loki has to decide whether to let himself get swept up in Thor's thunderstorm.

After the tantrum on the bus, Thor seems to settle a little bit. As if he's embarrassed, but completely without saying it or apologizing in any capacity, he just gets back to work.

He's still drinking, but it seems to have gone back to the levels it had been early on in Loki's involvement, sticking mostly to beer. He rehearses and writes and performs beautifully, and Loki easily lets it happen. 

Thor is convincing, and charismatic, and Loki has upended his entire life for this, so he certainly isn't going to question Thor's turn-around.

In retrospect, Loki should have considered that cornering Thor into forced semi-sobriety wouldn’t result in anything good. Loki is proven right when, a couple of weeks after actually putting in the effort to keep his drinking to a minimum, the momentum drops and Thor plummets back to rock bottom.

Loki knows this is rock bottom because he’s never seen Thor take anything before a performance except for the booze, but this time, he slips a pill bottle from his jacket that Loki has never seen before and pops two into his mouth.

Right then and there, Loki wants to stop him, but the man heads out of the stage and Loki’s protest is swallowed up by the loud cheering.

\- - - - -

Thor doesn’t know what everybody’s deal is with him and his vices. He doesn’t like how nosy everyone is. It’s all bullshit anyways, because he knows that none of them are sticking around for him.

Hela makes it abundantly clear each day, as she hisses at him and scolds him, demeans him.

His motley crew, of flirty Fandral and unconcerned Volstagg (and Hogun, once upon a time), are all just in it for the thrill of the life on the road - as well as the paycheck and the infamous trysts they get away with.

And Loki... Loki, despite Thor’s pride in him for getting signed and putting his name out there, has all but slapped his face with the cold hard reality that nothing is going to be just music and making merry across the country.

It’s all about competition, the spotlight, the glory - Thor had craved that once as well, still does, honestly - he just never thought Loki would get a taste for it and practically just bail on him.

Because that’s what Loki is leading up to, Thor knows. He’s tried to please the man, but after their little scuffle, Loki hasn’t even let Thor so much as peck his cheek.

Thor doesn’t want to be sober for when Loki finally ditches him.

Let it be known that he tried, though. Thor did. Really.

\-------

It's a sold out stadium show in LA, and Loki can tell something bad is going to happen because Thor is snorting crushed pills off the table in the dressing room and washing them down with straight whiskey.

"What the shit," Loki snarls, striding up to Thor with two minutes until showtime. 

"Wha's wha' shid?" Thor slurs, struggling to his feet only to fall back onto the sofa with an ungraceful "oof". He's got a stupid, infuriating smile on his face, like he's going to crawl onto the stage like everything is normal.

Because that's what Thor is doing right now, crawling on his hands and knees towards the door, stopping every few moments as he tilts from one side to another. 

"No fucking way," Loki says, anger burning through him like wildfire. How could Thor DO this to them? It's a sold out show! It's the culmination of this entire tour! After tonight, they're supposed to head back to Nashville and log some time in the recording studio. 

But there isnt going to BE a show if Thor can’t fucking walk. "Get up," Loki demands as Thor rolls onto his side, laughing. 

"Y'r so uptide!" Thor exclaims, once again fumbling to his feet, immediately crashing into the wall, that dopey stupid smile never leaving his stupid face, flushed with booze.

Loki makes the decision then and there - the fans are going to have to do without Thor tonight. The man can barely get a word out straight, can’t even manage to get to his fucking feet, never mind try to look the least bit put together.

“You’re staying here.”

Thor frowns up at him, pushing back against the wall and staggering forward before dropping to his knees, then onto his side again. Loki watches as a shudder runs through him, making a face when Thor gags, puke slipping past his lips to his cheek before dripping down to the floor. Loki lets out a sound of disgust when he sees the man swallowing what must be the rest of the bile back down.

“Yeah, I thought so. That was disgusting,” Loki tells him, then heads out to find Volstagg, but finds Hela instead, “he’s out. He’s on some shit or another and some booze. Make sure he doesn’t fucking die back there while I wrap this tour up.”

Hela raises both eyebrows, “You? This is his tour, you’re aware?”

“And he’s out of his fucking mind on whatever it is he’s just snorted up his nose! You know, just make sure he doesn’t fucking die but don’t help him. He needs to learn how to clean up his own fucking messes.”

He leaves Hela in stunned silence, grabbing Thor's guitar from the stand and storming onto the stage. 

Alone.

\---------

Thor knows he's supposed to be doing something right now. Something important. He also knows Loki is pissed at him, but he isn't sure why.

He also isn't sure why he's on the floor of a shower stall, getting sprayed down with freezing cold water, still fully clothed. "WHADDA FUCK!" he bellows as a dark blur he THINKS might be Hela stands there.

He can barely hear what she’s saying. She must be mumbling. That's all it is. "Speak t'fug up," he snaps at her, struggling to get himself back to his feet because NOW he remembers. 

Vaguely. 

Concert.

End of the tour.

Fuck.

He pushes past Hela and staggers towards the stage, barely realizing he's still soaking wet. He grabs a beer on his way, and uses the wall to prop himself up, but he makes it.

And Loki is out there, singing one of his songs.

Thor is dumbstruck for a moment, once again caught mesmerized by just how perfect Loki sounds - whether he’s singing Thor’s songs or singing his own, Loki sounds perfect. The enchantment doesn’t last long though, as Thor comes back to himself and realizes that Loki is up there singing HIS songs.

Thor’s songs, in Thor’s concert, with Thor’s guitar and Thor’s band and his... everything.

And the crowd loves him.

It’s like they barely even care that it isn’t Thor who’s singing up there.

The sound in the stadium is deafening enough already without the blaring of the instruments as well, but the sudden ringing in his ears doesn’t come from either. Thor rubs at his ear with one hand and takes a swig from his beer on the other - no, this ringing isn’t coming from outside.

Thor pushes himself off the wall again and tries to navigate towards the center stage, but someone grabs his arm and drags him back in the shadows of the curtains.

Drags him back, hides him away in shame. Thor can almost hear his old man’s words screaming at him when Hela’s face swims into view. Thor stares at her dumbly,

“Lemme’ go’. Lemme ‘lone! M’singin’ ma’ songs. They’re mah’ goddam’ songs! My wor’s!”

"And that would make a lot more difference if anyone could actually UNDERSTAND your words," Hela replies, enunciating clearly, her talon-like fingernails digging into the meat of his bicep. 

"FUGGOFF!" Thor bellows, shoving against her. It would have been more effective if she hadn't just side-stepped and let him fall into a crumpled heap on the floor. 

"Get your shit together, baby brother," she sneers. "Dad would be so disappointed in you."

Thor's guts twist at the mention of their father, and he curls around himself to try and block it out, the memory of it, of lying in the bathtub puking his guts out before a show while Odin gave him a bump of coke to wake him up. "Dad'd unnerstan'," he counters, his fingers flexing and scrabbling against the wood floor as he tries and fails to get his feet under him again. 

He's too damn drunk and too fucked up on the goddamned xanax, and things are starting to go fuzzy around the edges as he feels, suddenly, extremely overheated and nauseous. 

"Did you just fucking shit yourself?" Hela asks, disgusted.

Thor feels the burn of shame flare hotter in his chest as he crawls to the nearest shadowed corner. There, he starts throwing up. Hela leaves him to his sick, and nobody else bothers to come near him either.

Thor tucks himself into a tight ball.

See?

Why the fuck should he take care of himself when nobody else tries to the second he isn’t singing on that stage?

\- - - - -

Loki wraps up the concert with two songs of his own, and an encore of one of Thor’s. The rush that was flowing through him throughout the entire run made him feel more alive than he had ever felt before. The fact that the star of the show was backstage, probably still wretched, took a backseat.

When it’s over though, and Loki makes his way backstage, reality reasserts itself like a wave engulfing him.

Walking over to the nearest person he recognizes, Loki grabs her elbow and asks,

“Where is he?”

The woman points at a corner, and Loki needs to squint before he realizes and makes out that the odd lump is actually Thor.

He strides over, recoiling at both the sight and smell of Thor curled up in the corner, head resting at an awkward angle against the wall. His eyes are half-lidded, mouth slack, cheeks ruddy and chin and chest splattered with vomit. 

"Are you awake?" he asks, because even though Thor's eyes aren't closed, Loki has learned that doesn't mean all the lights are on. 

"Mmm," Thor replies, managing to tilt his head enough to look up at Loki. "Ho' y'liked st-ssstealin' my fffuckin' work," spills out of his mouth next. 

"Hope you liked making yourself a fucking joke," Loki snaps back, because he hadn’t stolen shit. He had played Thor's songs because Thor is incapable of appreciating the gifts he's been given. 

"Take a shower," Loki demands. "I really don't want to talk to you anymore until you do." The secondhand embarrassment of looking down at Thor in his soiled clothes and inability to even TRY to understand what everyone is so upset about is getting to be too much. 

He walks away before Thor can formulate a response.

\--------

Volstagg finds Thor several hours later, still in the corner. He had expected somebody to have moved the man by now, or for Thor to have moved himself, but his friend is still there, staring at nothing.

"Thor?" he prods, poking Thor with his toe.

"Mmhmm," Thor hums in response. Good, not dead, then. Bad, because everybody - Volstagg included - had kind of just left him there. 

Volstagg has been with Thor from the beginning. This isn't the worst he's seen, but it's up there. And it's far more frequent than it once was. 

Loki had been a good influence, at first, but Volstagg can see what's happening. He's sure Thor can, too. And it's not like it would be the first time. Thor gives so openly and freely of himself, latches on to people so tightly, that he always ends up hurt and alone in the end.

"Alright, my friend. Let's get you cleaned up," Volstagg leans down to grab Thor's wrist, slinging the man's arm over his shoulders.

He doesn't flinch at the stench coming from the younger lad, doesn't mind that Thor is barely putting in any effort in remaining upright. Volstagg just brings the blond back to the dressing room showers, sitting him on the tile and patting his face.

"I'll come right back with some clean clothes from the car," Volstagg says before turning the shower on, making sure to lean Thor securely in the corner before heading out.

He finds Loki still outside, sitting on the sidewalk with a stick of Thor's preferred brand of cigarettes between his fingers in one hand, and a bottle of beer in the other. Volstagg can tell Loki isn't used to it though, as he coughs with every time he sucks on the butt of the smoke - the bottle too, though opened, remains full.

"You trying to follow in his footsteps?"

Loki shrugs, "Just trying to see what's so great about it."

Loki offers him the bottle, and Volstagg takes it and finishes it in four big gulps, "He doesn't do it on purpose, you know. He's sick."

"Yeah. So fucking sick - it was all over his shirt and his face and he shat himself too!"

Volstagg shakes his head sadly, "You know that's not what I meant. I'm going to go get his clothes. He's at the shower trying to clean up. Just so you can get an idea though, he just sat there where we left him until I found him a few minutes ago. Just sitting in his own shit and his vomit. I know you might be mad at him now, but you should at least feel something knowing that, considering... Well. I'll leave you to think on it."

\------

Loki does think about it. Thor had just... stayed there? The whole time? Usually when he's that messed up, he's all over the place, trying to stumble around to talk to everybody. Then again, Loki has never seen Thor quite that out of it before. 

Volstagg is right; Thor is sick. Fucked in the head, and he's trying to drag Loki down with him. But - and there's always that but - when Thor has his shit under control, he's amazing, and Loki wouldn't trade the last few months for anything. 

He just doesn't know what to do. Nobody seems keen to put a foot down, to force any changes, and Thor himself certainly doesnt seem interested in acknowledging the fact he's a hardcore alcoholic. 

And without anyone backing him up, Loki knows he wouldn't get far in any attempts of his own to get Thor sober. 

He heads to the dressing room showers, wincing when he sees Thor fumbling with his belt buckle, sitting under the spray, head lolled back against the tile. He's managed to get out of his shirt and boots, at least.

"Hey," Loki says. "Looks like you could use some help." 

Loki is pissed off, he's not heartless.

Thor looks absolutely pitiful, and downright miserable.

"M'good," Thor says, and Loki doesn't bother hiding another wince at the raspy sound of the other's voice and the stubbornness.

Loki tells himself that he's got to be the bigger man here and extend an olive branch. He steps closer and crouches down next to the man, unbuckling his belt for him and slipping it off, looping it over itself and setting it down outside.

Thor still refuses to acknowledge him.

"Can you stand up?"

Thor shrugs. Loki feels the annoyance make a sudden reappearance. Taking a deep breath, Loki is about to attempt civility again but Thor cuts him off,

"Don't'ya haff' t'be somewhere else, superstar?"

Loki bristles despite himself, standing straight and taking a step back. "Are YOU pissed at ME?" he demands, unable to believe that Thor is actually holding a grudge on this. "You're mad at ME? Are you fucking kidding me!?"

"Those're my ffffuckin' songs," Thor snarls, tugging at his pants now, managing to squirm halfway out before losing steam. 

"If it matters that much to you, maybe next time try and be sober enough to perform them yourself," Loki suggests, running a hand down his face, feeling on the verge of frustrated tears.

Luckily, he's spared from having to continue this pointless exercise in blame-naming by Volstagg returning with a clean set of clothes - not nice ones, sweatpants and a t-shirt - and a towel.

"You got this?" Loki asks. 

Volstagg gives him a dirty look, but nods and turns his attention back to Thor.

\- - - - -

Thor doesn't watch, but he hears Loki stomping away and slamming furniture and doors on his way out. Wherever that is. Thor tries to convince himself that he doesn't care about it, that it doesn't hurt. 

"Don't mind him," Volstagg says, helping him to his feet and out of his pants, then holds him steady as he shrugs out of his boxers too.

Thor looks down at his undergarments, blinking stupidly at the stain he can clearly see peeking up at him. The shame fills him again, and he's glad for the water pelting his head as his eyes start heating up. If Volstagg notices his tears, he doesn't say anything.

"M'good. Y'can wait out back."

Volstagg does after making sure that he's steady on his feet.

Nobody ever bothers to stay to make sure.

Nobody cares enough to try.

Thor sinks back down to the floor, covers his head with his arms, and cries.

\--------

"You really shined out there," Tony Stark says, handing Loki a hard backed guitar case. "I think it's about time we get you in the studio. Thor's gotta get a new record out, and who the fuck knows how that's gonna go, so it's a good time for you to stick around LA, hone your look."

Loki glances down at his black jeans and button-down. "My look is fine," he says. 

Stark gestures for him to open the case. "You're not some honky-tonk country idiot," he says. 

Loki opens it. Staring back at him is a pitch-black Fender stratocaster, and Loki's mouth goes dry.

"What..." 

"I wanna revamp your sound a little, pull you out of Odinson's shadow," the exec explains. "What do you say?"

Loki doesn't even need to think about it. If Thor wants to fuck around with his career and his fame, if he wants to squander his future, then Loki isn't going to get in his way. He won't allow Thor to ruin his own chances though.

"When do we start?"

\- - - - -

Thor finds out that Loki is signing a record deal and putting his own single out not through Hela, not through the man himself, but through a fucking ad.

It doesn't feel like a betreyal, per se - in fact, Thor is even proud of the man - but he can't bring himself to be happy. Mostly everyone is talking about it, and he plasters a grin on his face every time he's asked about it… but… he is. Not. Happy.

He hasn't been for a while now.

At the very least, though, Thor knows how to open his next show, if he'll even have any now - and he manages to write his heart out as well.

Silver linings, Thor thinks.


	4. Leave Me Alone With the Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA "Run Along, Run Along, Don't Pester Me Further"
> 
> Thor and Loki try tp tend to their respective affairs, with mutually limited success.

If Hela was relieved that her brother seems to have gotten his act together after that debacle in LA, she wouldn't say so. Saying so would jinx it completely, so she merely contents herself with being glad Thor is showing up at his recording sessions as sober as he can possibly get, on time and ready to work. 

She has a feeling he's doing it out of spite. She'd known Loki wouldn't last; none of Thor's favorites do. Loki is the first one to leave to pursue his own fame, though. 

And it clearly grates on Thor.

"Get me a show," he demands of her one afternoon, halfway through a session that is taking forever because Thor is being weirdly perfectionist about the mix. 

"You're recording, you're not touring," she reminds him. Just because he prefers to be on the road doesn't mean the label will let him do that. Not after LA. He's a liability, needs to prove himself again. 

"Not a tour. Just a show," he presses. "Please. I don't even need a backing band. Just me. I just need to -" 

"Fine," Hela snaps. "If it’ll get you to go back in that fucking booth."

Thor huffs, then let's the fight drain out of him. Hela narrows her eyes a little, then prompts him to go back to his work, telling him he needs to get it done. Thor gives Hela a long look, face blank. Hela sighs, raising her voice,

"Fine, have a break. I'll look into getting you one. How big do you want it to be?"

"I don't care, I just... want to perform," Thor says without much inflection to his voice.

Hela, despite her distance towards Thor throughout the entire time she took over managing him, cups his face with one hand, brushing her thumb over his cheek. His eyes are bruised as though he hasn't had an inch of sleep since LA, which is a probability.

"Get some rest."

"I'll rest when I'm dead."

Thor turns away, going back to listen to the audio of the most current take, a frown marring his face in displeasure. Hela doesn't like Thor when he's drunk-happy, but she doesn't like it when he's like this either.

Still, it's the lesser of two evils, so she leaves him to his nitpicking and follows up on her promise. Can't have the brat throwing another fit, after all.

\-------

In another recording studio thousands of miles away, Loki sits alone in the booth, tuning his new guitar. It's a gorgeous instrument, and he's still having a hard time believing it's his. That any of this is his. 

He hasn't heard much from Thor, though hes hardly surprised. Every so often there will be a text or a drunken voicemail, but Loki has found himself swept up in the bustle of LA, of recording his songs in a completely different genre than he's gotten used to playing. 

It suits him, and he's... mostly happy. 

He misses Thor, though, despite the sour note they had parted on. He misses Thor's enthusiasm and his creativity, his wellspring of brilliance in his craft. 

He doesn't miss... a lot of the rest of it.

He doesn't miss most of the rest of it, to be completely honest, but Loki owes Thor something.

If the man hadn't dropped by the bar he sang in that night, at that exact hour, to the very minute that Loki was up to perform - none of this would have happened. It was a one in a million chance, and for it to have happened to him of all people...

Loki sighs, letting his pen clatter to the table as he starts plucking at his guitar idly. The sound isn't as rich as the acoustic guitars in Thor's collection, and the hum of it against his chest isn't as resonant or as felt, but by GOD does it feel good.

It doesn't remind him of the other man, at least - but maybe, Loki can get his frustrations out through music. It's what he's always done.

The first song he plans to record is the first one he shared with Thor. The one he had written about Thor - written it FOR Thor. They've sung it together at multiple shows at this point, but it's his.

It's his song, and he's going to record it. 

And Thor can keep doing whatever he wants to do.

\-------

Loki's album drops first, mostly because of the delays Hela had already anticipated. Thor being moody, Thor being picky, Thor being hungover. 

She listens to the record alone; she knows it's only a matter of time before Thor hears it, and she wants to be on top of the game when that happens. 

Stark has reinvented Loki as a pop-alt rocker, a stark counterpoint to Thor's down-home country twang. It's a good sound for him, Hela thinks, but she wishes it had not come at the expense of her little brother. 

At the very least, even if he has a meltdown for a few days, this might be what Thor needs to get his ass in gear and release his own album.

Hela is exactly right about it too. When Thor gets hold of the single, he shuts himself away and disengages entirely - the only time he ever acknowledges and interacts with anyone for weeks is when he's drinking or loosened up on Xanax.

Hela doesn't like it one bit, so close to the show Thor had requested. She's about to cancel the arrangement altogether, but then somehow - somehow her little brother manages to pull himself together for it - clear eyed (or as close as Thor ever gets to being clear eyed anyways) and ready three days prior to it.

When it comes, Hela almost believes Thor is in the best state to be giving the show. He isn't on his pills, and has only had a couple of shots of whiskey. It's almost the state he was in before Loki. That is, until he goes on stage.

Hela stands at the side and listens as Thor addresses the crowd,

"Good evening and thank y'all for comin'. Yeah uh, jus' wan'ed to apologize, first of all, cus' I know I probably disappointed y'all in LA. Been in a bad place. Uh... Anyways, I hope y'all enjoy yourselves."

Hela bites her lip as she recognizes the plucking pattern - Johnny Cash’s version of “Hurt”, then grits her teeth harder when Thor stars singing. Little fucker always manages to make her feel like shit - even if he doesn't mean it.

That's Thor, though, never considering how he might be making other people feel. She and the three knuckleheads Thor insists on having around are used to it. The rest weren't, which is why none of them lasted. Why Loki didn't last. 

Thor's rendition of the song is heartbreaking though, and Hela half-hopes somebody managed to record it because artistically... it was perfect, but she knows full well why Thor chose that particular song.

And then, he's just standing there. Just standing there, both hands on the microphone stand, staring out at the crowd. It goes on long enough that the audience goes silent. Someone coughs. 

Hela waits. She'll give it another minute; its entirely possible this is some sort of performance art bullshit. But he keeps standing there, still as a statue, for another five agonizing minutes before speaking. 

"I, ah, I'm sorry, y'all. I can't do this right now." He sets the guitar down and walks off the stage. Hela clenches her fists and screams without opening her mouth.

She’s about to rip him a new one, but as Thor brushes past her, she sees his face crack and crumble, his shoulders hunching inwards and shaking - it brings her to a halt.

Hela stares at his retreating back, then at the stage.

Well fuck.

\- - - - - -

Naturally, the blowback reaches Loki faster than one could say his name - and it reaches him through Tony during one of their meetings.

"I can't believe this idiot... As if LA wasn't enough he fucks up a backwater show. Jesus," Tony hisses, and Loki curiously peers at the phone in his hand, "I'm going to need to make a call. Excuse me for a bit."

Loki waits until Stark is out of the room, then scrambles for his own phone and looks it up. As he reads a couple of articles, he can't help but shake his head - curiosity gets the better of him though, and he manages to find a relatively good quality recording of the one song Thor managed to play that night.

His heart sinks into his stomach as he recognizes the opening lick. Thor's voice is raspy, his eyes trained not on the audience like usual, but at a spot in front of him on the floor. 

He quavers a little, "everyone I know goes away in the end," and Loki swallows heavily. This is almost harder to watch than how he had been in LA.

Not that it isn't a gorgeous performance. It is, one of Thor's best, really. But Loki worries what else is to it, what Thor is hiding behind a facade of uncaring debauchery. 

He hesitates for a moment over the messenger app, compelled to reach out, but wary of what can of worms that might open. Then he thinks about Thor, curled up and alone in the corner of the room, forgotten even by the other people there. Sick. 

\- Hey. Are you okay?

\- how's la treating u superstar?

\- Fine. I'm asking about you.

\- fine 

\- You fucking liar.

\- bye

Loki bites at his nails, wondering what he could say to get Thor to open up to him, then decides to go with the one thing they bonded on in the first place, sending a series of texts:

\- I saw your concert.

\- Not live.

\- I didn't even know you were playing.

\- You were amazing.

Thor replies after that particular one, 

\- i walked off after one song

\- You did. It was a beautiful rendition though.

No answer. 

\- I wish I could have heard you sing.

No answer.

\- Thor?

No answer. 

\- I'll leave my phone on.

\- - - - - - - -

Hela doesn't know how to deal with Thor. She doesn't know how to deal with the fallout of the botched show too. Doesn't know how to make reparations after the news spreads like wildfire of how the Thor Odinson walked out and left hundreds of fans waiting.

Thor himself is back to his routine, drinking himself stupid, knocking back his Xanax fast enough that Hela is running out of threats and excuses for why he needs refills, and when he isn't doing either of those, he barely gets out of bed.

It's infuriating, it's frustrating, it's... just really fucking pathetic - it's fucking sad.


	5. I'm Not Coming Home Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA "We Were So Proud of You, But Then You Went Astray"
> 
> Thor does his best to push those closest to him away, and very nearly succeeds.

They send Loki on tour to promote his album. Give him a tour bus to rival Thor's, and a small entourage, and send him off. 

It's everything Loki had ever dreamed of; he's starting to play for sold out crowds, and his venues are starting to get bigger. His record sales are through the roof, and Tony had said the other day that his single is about to go platinum. 

And Loki can't stop thinking about Thor. It's hard not to think about him, when his face is plastered all over the tabloids and gossip sites. "Country's favorite bad boy spends a night in jail - and charms guards and fellow inmates alike!" crows one article, the photo showing Thor laughing, waving back at the jailhouse as Volstagg has his hand on his head to shove him into the waiting car. 

Loki can imagine well how everything must have gone down, and he's sure Hela must be furious. Still, an even more recent article suggests Thor might be canceling his press tour, citing "exhaustion,'' which everybody knows is celebrity-speak for "I'm a huge mess and shouldn't be giving interviews". 

It makes Loki antsy, especially since he's not getting much from Thor via text or phone, despite sending him messages a couple of times a week. As the bus rolls it's way down route 80, Loki tries again,

\- Are you in Nashville still?

\- Because that's where I'm heading

\- I wouldn't mind seeing you

He pauses for a long moment, then adds, 

\- I miss you

To his surprise, his phone chimes right away.

\- still here. come gloat.

It’s accompanied by an address.

Loki doesn’t like the second part of the invitation, but he hopes by the time he gets there that Thor would be more amenable to a visit from him. After all, Loki really does miss the man - he assumes Thor might miss him too.

He copies down the address and makes arrangements for his little side trip to be the first thing he does.

\- - - - -

The estate they pull up to is huge and secluded, and it is beautiful. The architecture is a blend of modern and traditional, rustic and cutting edge. It’s surrounded by woods from all sides and an artificial looking spring near one of its patios. It must be so peaceful to live here - but... Thor’s music is spilling out from open windows and doors.

“You sure you want me to leave you here?” Happy asks, and Loki rolls his eyes.

“I’ll be fine, go have some fun.”

The man gives him one more look before getting back in his car and driving off. Loki braces himself and climbs up the steps.

Inside is a different story altogether - but Loki should have expected it from the music blaring so loudly he could hear it on the driveway.

There’s mud tracked inside from heavy looking boots that are discarded near one of the kitchen counters, and there’s more empty bottles than Loki can count strewn all around. There’s food in various states of rot, as well as a couple of clothes here and there. There are also a couple of pill bottles here and there too.

Loki walks over to the stereo set that’s blasting music in the living room and shuts it off, the silence that follows is eerie enough to be oppressive.

“Thor?” Loki calls, but hears no answer.

“Hela?” He tries, only to get the same response once more.

Loki walks around the house and finds various rooms until he finds a bedroom that’s in a worse state than the whole house combined. On the bed is Thor, headphones on and still enough to look dead. Loki knocks on the door, the man doesn’t stir.

Sighing, he moves in and kicks away more bottles and what look and smell suspiciously like soiled clothes, then sits on the bed, reaching out to put a hand on Thor’s shoulder. He shakes him slightly, gratified when Thor’s eyes blink blearily.

“What’re you doin’ ‘ere?”

"You gave me the address, remember?" Loki prompts, helping Thor sit up a bit and placing the headphones on the nightstand. "You okay?"

Thor pushes away and stands, turning back to face Loki, swaying. "Of course, don't I look okay?" he asks with a fake little smile and a huff of a laugh. 

He doesn't look okay at all. Sallow and gaunt, with dark rings around his eyes and his hair hanging limp and greasy, Thor looks terrible. Instead of answering, Loki presses his lips together. 

"Do you want... lunch or something?" he asks, picking at his palm, feeling awkward. Feeling like coming here might have been a mistake. 

Thor rubs an eye with the heel of his hand. "Wha' was that?" he asks.

"Lunch," Loki repeats, louder. "Do you want lunch?"

Thor looks a bit confused, as though the concept of having lunch is foreign to him. Loki thinks it might be a possibility, given how much half eaten food was lying around compared to the liquor.

Loki stands, walking over and hesitantly circling Thor’s wrist with his hand and tugging, “Come on. Let’s get some food in you, huh? How long since you’ve had a good meal?”

“M’takin’ care of myself. You didn’t need to come.”

Loki sighs, tugging on Thor’s arm again, willing it, for once, to just be easy. Neither of them have seen each other in months. They didn’t need to make this another fight.

“Just let me?”

Thor looks at him and rubs his eye again, coughing.

"Yeah. Alright," he finally agrees.

\-------

Thor doesn't remember texting Loki his address, but that's not surprising. What is surprising is the fact Loki showed up. It's been months, and Thor - he had fully expected never to see Loki in person again.

But here he is, rummaging around Thor's kitchen for something edible. There isn't anything worth cooking, Thor already knows that. There is, however, plenty of beer, and he grabs one and cracks it open, ignoring Loki's tight expression. 

"Just order takeout," Thor suggests. That's what he does, when it occurs to him that he needs to eat. 

Loki spends a few minutes throwing garbage away - Thor scowls down at his phone because Loki doing that means Loki is judging him, and he's really in no mood. 

As he's scrolling through delivery options and ignoring Loki's meddling, a text from Hela pops up. 

\- Stark needs to meet with us while he's in town 

\- stark can go fuck himself

\- No excuses. It's about your contract.

Thor feels tight panic twist his guts. He's going to lose his contract. He's going to lose his record label. He fumbles on the counter for the bottle of Xanax, swallowing down two with a swig of the beer, desperate for relief from the clawing agony shredding his chest. 

He's going to lose everything. 

He puts on a smile, slings an arm around Loki's shoulders, and points out his favorite Chinese food place.

\- - - -

Loki can’t pretend he doesn’t see the sudden turn in Thor’s personality, can’t pretend he can’t see through the forced cheer into the fear that’s hidden below, the desperation, the helplessness. Loki can’t set aside that it hits him like a sucker-punch, because has that look always been there? Has he ignored that? Ignored the loneliness the man must have been feeling in all the time Loki’d known him?

Hell, the lyrics in Thor’s songs were telling enough but... somehow Loki has never really paid any attention before.

“You can talk to me, you know. Whatever it is. I’m listening.”

Thor tilts his head to the side, then starts giggling, then throws his head back in laughter. Loki grits his teeth - he must have taken some pills while Loki was clearing his dining table enough to actually use it.

“What?” Loki asks, not able to hide the annoyance in his voice.

“S’just. You said you - you’re listening? Shouldn’t you already have... I never... and here I thought all those times you sent messages to me were... well- never mind that,” Thor laughs again, “whadd’ya wanna eat?”

\-------

They end up ordering from the Chinese food place Thor had pointed out, if only because Loki doesn't want to have a prolonged conversation about it. He wants Thor to eat something, ultimately.

"So, uh," he says. 

"So, uh," Thor mimics, lifting the beer bottle to his mouth and giving him a shitty, lopsided smirk. "Congrats, by th' way. You're really... doing well, aren't you?" 

Loki grimaces. Thor's tone is perfectly pleasant, but Loki can hear the edge behind the words. He doesn't want a fight. "Don't you have an album coming out too?" he asks.

Thor stares at him, and he swigs the beer again. "Already came out," he grumbles.

Loki’s eyes widen somewhat at the declaration, because he hadn’t heard about anything of Thor’s album coming out at all, he hadn’t heard anything about... oh. 

Oh.

“Oh. I... I haven’t heard-“

Thor snorts, waving him off with that same fake smile on his face, his eyes pinching at the corners with barely concealed pain - or is that resentment? Loki can’t quite tell, and he feels a horrible guilt squeeze his throat as Thor says,

“S’shit, s’why you haven’t heard anythin’. You’re lucky you didn’t waste your time.”

Loki stands there gaping for a moment, trying to salvage the moment. Usually Thor's albums are met with rave reviews and glowing articles but this time... nothing. 

"I want to hear it," he says decisively. Whatever he thinks about Thor, his music is... amazing. Or was. Maybe it's not anymore and that's why no one has said anything. 

"You dont wanna hear it," Thor snorts.

Loki takes out his phone, ready to look for the man’s new songs, only to have Thor pluck it from his hands. Loki looks up with his mouth hanging open a little, then he scowls.

“Give that back,” he hisses, reaching over, but Thor leans away - smiling.

“Let’s not. You didn’t come here for that. C’mere,” Thor finishes his beer and gets up, walking over to one of the adjoining rooms where there’s a grand piano, Loki following him closely.

Loki watches as Thor sits himself down in front of it, hands resting on the keys before playing out a melody. He immediately recognizes it as one of his own new ones in his record, and the guilt increases tenfold. Loki’s songs were never meant to be played like how Thor is playing it now.

In Thor’s hands, it sounds infinitely more... depressing.

“Sing a bit? Haven’t heard you singin’ in person in a while.”

Loki hesitates for a moment. He misses singing with Thor, misses the rush of their collaboration. It's too bad Thor didn't seem to care as much about it as he did the booze. 

Thor is looking up at him expectantly, and it's not like it could hurt anything, so Loki starts to sing, matching the pace and tone of Thor's playing, turning an upbeat anthem into a mournful dirge. 

Thor adds his own vocal harmonies in a few places, his throaty growl of a voice much more suited to the mood. It sounds... amazing. 

Despite himself, he sings along to another couple, Thor's piano work changing them so they're nearly unrecognizable. And, Loki is loathe to admit, they're... better, with Thor's touch. 

"Too bad we can’t record a duo album," he comments after a while, mildly.

Thor slams the piano lid closed just as the doorbell rings; the delivery driver has good timing. 

"Yep," he says, heading towards the door. "Too bad."

\- - - - -

They eat out on the patio to the sound of cicadas and rustling leaves. Or at least Loki eats, Thor just picks at his food every so often, more intent on drinking as they lounge.

Loki peers up every so often to observe the other man, slouched on the chaise and looking for all the world like a languid cat sunning itself. If it weren’t for everything else about his state, Thor would be the perfect picture for a vacation ad.

“You’re staring,” the man says suddenly, bringing Loki out of his musings.

“You aren’t eating.”

Thor raises an eyebrow, reaching over to pluck an egg roll from one of the takeaway boxes. He pops it into his mouth and washes it down with beer, then goes back to his blank staring. Loki starts bouncing his leg.

“Can I have my phone back now?” Loki asks, Thor doesn’t even twitch.

“Thor?” He says louder, and the man looks over, a question in his expression. Loki frowns, remembering how he found the man coiled in bed with headphones on. Loki changes his original question, “Is the ringing in your ears getting worse?”

Thor shrugs, rubbing his ears, “Little bit.”

“You haven’t gotten any follow-ups on that, have you?”

Thor shrugs again, then takes out his own phone, reading a message before scoffing. Loki can see his hands shaking.

“Hela?”

“Yeah. She’s coming over later if you want to catch up with her. So’s your new chum buddy.”

Loki can't help the stab of anxiety at that bit of news. He has a feeling the meeting with Stark isn't going to end well for Thor, and he isn't sure he wants to be here when it happens.

In fact, he knows he doesn't want to be. 

Except... people have been walking away from the difficulty of Thor Odinson for a while, and Loki is a little worried what the man might do if left to his own devices for long, especially if Stark says something he doesn't like.

"I'll stick around, I guess," he says after a moment. "I wouldn't mind seeing Hela again." 

He wants to see Hela to ask her why the fuck Thor is allowed to rattle around this huge house by himself, what's being done to get him productive again. He also wants nothing to do with any of it. 

"She'll pro'lly be happier to see you than she will be to see me," Thor snorts, draining his beer. Small miracles that he doesn't seem to be hitting the hard liquor, yet. "I know what it's about." 

"Do you?" Loki asks mildly.

Thor grabs another beer and shrugs. "Only a couple things it could be," he replies, sounding more upbeat than Loki is comfortable with.

Loki sets his food down, giving Thor an even look. There really are only a couple of reasons Loki can think of too - and given the fact that Thor's new album apparently tanked so hard that he hadn't even heard of it... Loki sighs. He doesn't really want to involve himself in Thor's professional life again - but he still feels like he owes the man.

Loki wants to at least try. 

"We could do a collab."

It's the wrong thing to say.

Thor scowls, draining his newly opened beverage faster than Loki can blink - standing up and heading back inside. Loki scrambles up to his feet to follow him, frustration blooming in his chest and down to his core. 

"You don't have to, you know. I was just suggesting."

"How generous of you, but no thanks, don’t want to ride on your fame, superstar. I don't need your pity."

Loki huffs out a sigh. "I don't pity you," he protests. And he doesn’t. Thor is pitiable, certainly, but Loki can't bring himself to feel pity. Just sad. 

Thor chuckles and heads to the kitchen, filling a glass with ice and then splashing a couple shots' worth of whiskey into it. Loki tries not to wince. "You'd be the only one," he comments blithely. "I know what this all looks like."

It looks like the life of someone who has given in to their depression and vices, honestly, though why Thor keeps trying to put a happy face on it is beyond Loki. 

"It looks like you could use somebody to talk to," he ventures, regretting it immediately because he can’t get dragged down by Thor again.

The man smiles wolfishly as though he hears Loki's inner sentiments, knocking back the entire glass without pause. Thor doesn't even flinch at the burn of the liquor Loki is sure he feels. Or maybe he's gotten too used to it.

"I do, actually," Thor says, "you wanna know what's funny 'bout that though? I've tried to keep talkin' - so long. S'not fun when you talk and nobody pays any fuckin' attention, so don't start that shit with me. Feel free to do anything while you wait. Or y'could leave too, I don't give a shit."

Thor storms away, but not before snatching the full bottle of whiskey.

\- - - - - -

Thor isn't really looking forward to meeting with Hela, and more so the prospect of meeting Stark. He prepares the only way he knows how - he drinks and picks up a guitar.

It's a song he's been working on for a while, one he hasn't shared with anyone yet. He doesn't know if it ever will be. It's something for him, just for him. Everyone always takes and takes and takes and he isn't sure he has any more to give. But he has this song. He has this. 

"That's beautiful." 

His fingers still on the strings at the sound of Hela's voice behind him. "It's not for you," he says, putting the guitar aside and draining his latest drink. He stands, swinging his leg over the chair back to the roll of Hela's eyes. 

"If you'd put that on the album, we might not have to be having this meeting," she says as she herds him into the living room. Stark is already there in a sharp suit and light-lensed sunglasses, in conversation with Loki. Thor hates the man even more in that moment. 

"Let's get this over with," he says, throwing himself into an armchair, wishing he'd brought the bottle of whiskey with him.

Stark doesn't sit down on the couch, eyeing it warily - probably wary of the stains on it from when Thor had one drink too many. Thor is sure it's mostly just spilled alcohol though - that or some kind of sauces from previous takeout boxes that he'd left uneaten. Probably.

"Okay buddy, I'll come right out and say it - this isn't working anymore."

Thor feels his heart rate pick up, the anxiety he'd felt when he'd read Hela's message earlier making a reappearance, though slightly muted by the Xanax. The fact that he even feels it, though, makes him want to go and take another couple. Just to calm down a bit.

"Tony..." Loki implores, and Thor doesn't miss the first name basis. He hates it. Hates everything.

"No, no. I'm serious. After the LA wrapup of your last tour - which wasn't a complete failure, by the way, only thanks to Loki - not to mention that standalone you did that cost us thousands - and now the album, and now THIS!"

Stark throws a magazine at Thor. He picks it up, scans the headline when the man tells him which page, and as he reads it, Thor feels a numbness come over him. It's nothing but gossip - so they're making connections about Thor's songs in his album to Loki's - so what? So they're speculating about his sexuality and possible relationship (and breakup. HA!) with Loki... So what? It'll blow over in a week.

"You haven't had a decent public image in forever," Stark says, "and quite frankly, I'm sick and tired of this shit. It's taking away precious time and resources from what really matters."

Thor hears the implication loud and clear. He pretends not to though, rubbing his ear when Hela calls his name,

"I'm sorry, what?"

Stark clears his throat. "We're buying out your contract," he says, louder. "Fifteen million, plus you keep getting your percentage on royalties."

Thor blinks once. Twice. He feels his eyes start to burn and he sniffs, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees. "Fifteen million?" he asks, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "For three Grammys? Three platinum records? Eight gold? Fifteen million?" He scoffs and sits back. "Go fuck yourself."

Stark mirrors his tone. "This isn't a negotiation," he says firmly. "We're done, Thor. You're free to sign with another label, if one will have you." 

He's going to have a panic attack. Fuck. Fuck. "Get out of my house," Thor orders, nearly choking on his anxiety, "all three of you. Now."

"Thor..." Loki tries, and the sound of his voice is what makes Thor's tenuous grip snap.

"GET THE FUCK OUT!!"

All three of them jump at the loudness of his voice, but they still don't make a move to leave. Thor picks up one of the many bottles lying around and hurls it across the room, intentionally missing, but the sound of it shattering on the far wall is enough to spur the three to action.

Loki hesitates, but Hela pulls him away, so does Stark.

When he's sure he's alone, Thor sits heavily and tries - and fails - to keep his breaths from coming out in short breathless gasps. Thor stumbles to the kitchen where he'd left his pills, takes two more, then swipes his hand over the counter top. He knocks half a dozen bottles to the ground where they shatter into a few shards too many.

Not nearly as many shards as Thor's entire fucking existence though.

He sinks down to the floor, one hand gripping his head, the other groping around for a shard of glass. May as well just get this all over with. Everybody's already expecting it. Why not go all the way with it? 

"Let's clean this up," Loki says softly, reappearing and crouching down beside him. He puts a hand on Thor's shoulder and Thor jerks away. "Thor, come on."

"I told you to get out," he snarls at him, tightening his grip on the glass. "I'm the one going deaf, not you." Goddamn it, God fucking damn it. He hates everything. 

"You'll find another label."

"I don't care, get out."

The Xanax is starting to kick in. Things are starting to slow down a little bit. He still wants to die, but not in front of Loki. He stands, and pours himself another whiskey. Downs it. Drinks from the bottle. "Well?" 

"Well." 

"Are you going to leave?"

“No.”

Thor shakes his head, lifting the bottle to his lips again and eyeing Loki’s reaction as he drinks. The man just looks sad - as though he’s the one who just got a blow to his life’s work, no... he looks as though he’s watching something crumble, and Thor hates that it’s true. He pulls the bottle from his lips with a gasp, then pours some in the empty glass.

Loki is about to speak when Thor picks the glass up and splashes the younger man’s face with the liquor, satisfied when he sputters.

“There, y’got a reason to leave now. Go tattle to the tabloids.”

"You're a fucking piece of work, Thor, really," Loki says, exactly as Thor had expected. Had hoped. Had feared. "I hope you get some help."

Thor keeps his gaze firmly on the bottle in his hand until Loki finally, finally leaves.

\-------

"Someone should check on him," Loki says as he slides into the back of the car.

"I already texted Volstagg, he's on his way over," Hela replies. "You need to focus on your show." 

Loki had nearly forgotten.

Loki tries to keep Thor from his thoughts as they drive back to the hotel Stark had him booked at. It isn’t that difficult now, because the anger is back, and the resentment for all the time Loki had wasted trying to reach out to Thor.

Fuck Thor, Loki thinks, privately wishing him good fucking luck in his wallowing and whatever else he chooses to do with his life.

Loki isn’t responsible for him, and Loki is tired of dealing with men who don’t have their shit together. He’s going to be the one to walk away this time.

Loki tramples down on the part of his mind asking him if he really can.

\- - - - - - -

Loki performs his heart out at his concert, ignoring Hela’s messages when she updates him of how Thor is doing.

\- - - - - -

“Why the fuck do you keep coming here?” Thor growls when Hela finds him again at the bottom of another bottle of whiskey some three days later.

“To ask you to get off of your ass and prove to Stark that we can still pull it off. Hell, let him listen to that song from a couple of days ago. We can’t continue without his backing.”

“Stark didn’t make me who I am today. Dad made me who I am. I made me who I am,” Thor barks, pouring himself another drink.

Hela laughs shrilly, running her hands through her dark hair and pulling, “Dad? Are you FUCKING kidding me?! Daddy didn’t make you anything but his drinking buddy - didn’t make you anything but his little bitch that does everything he said!”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

“And you’re turning out EXACTLY like that old bastard!”

The crack of his hand hitting her cheek registers before the pain does, her head whipping to the side before she straightens, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Just. Like. Him," she reiterates, letting herself out and leaving Thor to his own mess.


	6. Be Careful of the Stones You Throw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA "A Tongue Can Accuse and Carry Bad News"
> 
> Success is a double-edged sword, and both Thor and Loki find themselves on the sharp end of it.

Loki continues his tour.

Halfheartedly, he tries to get back in touch with Thor, texting every so often from the road. He's supposed to go overseas next month and, honestly, he wants to at least make sure Thor is alive before he goes. 

He even tries texting Thor's friends, but there's stonewalling from them, too, the rote response of, "If he's not answering it means he doesn't want to talk to you" across the board. 

He tries not to think about it, and succeeds a lot of the time. Still, every so often a song of Thor's will come on the radio, or he'll see Thor's face on an advertisement or in a music video and he'll feel a pang of nerves. 

He tries to write it all out, which leaves him with an entire second album's worth of material before he's halfway through his first tour.

\- - - - - -

Thor hits his lowest when he hears that Hela has taken on managing another singer, and when he hears the news that Loki had already started his tour in Europe.

He hadn’t reached out to Hela after she walked out, and Thor still can’t quite believe that he’d hit her, but he couldn’t bring himself to apologize. He’d ignored Loki too, despite the man sending messages every so often. He’d ignored his friends, turned them away when they asked to come over for drinking sessions or some other thing.

Thor had kept to himself, and slowly the messages had tapered off.

Not even two months into his self-imposed isolation.

It’s fine. All fine.

Thor likes drinking alone anyways. Makes for a better atmosphere to get the creativity flowing. He manages not to die within that first month, and even pumps out a couple of songs he keeps to himself, so it’s all good.

It’s all fine.

\- - - - - -

Loki manages not to think about Thor the entire time he's in Europe, for the most part. He manages to have fun, and make friends, and hone a craft he loves. And oh, does he love it.

It's the validation he's been craving his entire life, the adoration and the admiration. People who hang on HIS words, who love HIS songs. It's what he's always dreamed of. 

By the time he returns to the States, he has almost forgotten to worry about Thor entirely. He wants to get back into the studio, start recording the songs he had written on the road, and it's going back through them that he remembers. 

He should really check on Thor.

Really, he should.

After he fixes the balance on this mix.

Loki busies himself so much that he isn’t able to get to it until another couple of months have passed, another couple of shows done here and there, another couple of interviews. When he finally does remember that he should try to check on Thor, it isn’t even because he himself remembers it.

It’s because he hears his personal assistant, Verity, listening to Thor’s song on her phone.

She’s waiting for him to come back from his lunch break so they can finish polishing a track when Loki catches her listening to it - and she immediately stops the song playing on the soundboard. 

“What was that song?”

“Uh. Just some rando,” Verity replies, a little too quickly. Loki only has to raise an eyebrow to get her to cave.

“It’s a new release from Thor. Just a couple of hours fresh. I know you two had... a personal history together. Or so I’ve heard.”

Loki feels his gut churn a little at that - because the last time he’d listened to Thor’s songs, the album that tanked, he’d felt every song and every word like a slap to the face. Still, he forces himself to speak,

“Is it any good? Tell me honestly.”

Verity squirms a little, then nods her head, “It’s... it’s really good.”

“Play it for me. Let’s have a listen.”

Verity bites her lip, but restarts the song. Loki closes his eyes and lets Thor's voice and guitar strumming wash over him.

It's the most honest song Loki has heard from the man the entire time he's known him. Reflective and melancholy, but with an undercurrent of hope to it that Loki truly hopes is sincere. 

It’s Thor's best work in recent memory, and Loki has to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand before reaching for his phone. "I gotta step out for a minute," he tells Verity. 

The phone rings three times before Thor picks up, to Loki's great surprise.

"Hey," Thor says, subdued. 

"Hey," says Loki. "I heard your new song. Is it- who's -"

"SHIELD Records signed me," Thor replies and Loki can HEAR his shrug over the phone. "I had to pay out the ass for performance insurance policies, though." 

Well, that's what he gets for fucking up so badly with his last label, Loki thinks before he can stop himself. That's not what this call is for. "I'm glad you got resigned," he says, truthfully. 

"Me too," Thor says.

There's a long stretch of awkward silence on the line before Thor coughs. "Uh, I gotta go. It was nice - um, thanks for calling. I'm still in Nashville. If you're ever in town. I guess. I'd understand if you didnt wanna."

“No,” Loki says without thinking, then hurries to rectify, “I mean, no, I do want to... hang out, someday.”

Loki can picture the sad smile on Thor’s face when he says, “Right... someday.”

“Thor...”

“I gotta go. Thanks for calling, Loki. And for listening to it. I appreciate that.”

Before Loki can get a word in, the call is dropped and all he can do for a while is stare at down at his phone. The call was awkward and stilted, but this time, Loki can’t actually blame it on the other man. He sounded completely sober - no trace of the slur Loki had gotten used to.

Loki doesn’t entirely know what to feel.

\- - - - - -

Thor releases his single, and the response to it is pretty good, but not as it once was. Steve assures him that they’ll get back to it though, and soon they’re going to hit those golds again if Thor keeps producing the same soul-searching songs his single had been.

Thor disagrees with the man privately, but he’s determined to give it a go anyways. He has a lot of things to say now that he’s had months of silence to himself - and the petty part of him also wants to compete.

He isn’t an idiot though. He knows he’s only setting himself up for more disappointment, but Thor doesn’t really know anything else.

He's even making a real effort at cutting back on his drinking, no more getting blackout drunk at two in the afternoon.

Not that he's stopped, of course, why would he? 

But he's trying, he's really trying, because he wants to prove everybody wrong. He wants to prove he's better than Loki, that he's better than even himself. He can do this. 

He can do this.

\- - - - - -

Steve Rogers knows he was taking a risk in signing Thor Odinson, but Steve likes risks. Stark does too, usually, but he also has a shiny new star to focus on, and Thor does take a lot of hands-on management.

Steve doesn't outright demand any lifestyle changes, knowing the futility of such an endeavor, but he does gently encourage it when Thor makes decisions that aren't completely self-destructive.

And it seems like Thor really craves positive reinforcement, because he starts to get it together. He writes and records and starts to build his reputation back up. It's good, though it takes more energy than Steve had quite realized. Well, he thinks the payout will be worth it, and then Stark will realize the mistake he had made, and that will be gorgeous payback.

It’s why Steve goes out of his way to help Thor back on his feet and to get his name out there again, and it’s exactly the reason why he books Thor a show months later when he finds out that Loki Laufeyson is paying a visit to Nashville.

Steve doesn’t want Thor to anywhere near the man, considering his slip into the entire mess was after Loki started performing with him on stage during his last tour. Granted, maybe Thor would have gone down the same road even without Loki, but it still worries Steve that any contact with the man will come with a setback in Thor’s progress.

Steve gets the show approved, Thor’s popularity had come back enough that a live in his hometown wouldn’t be amiss and completely out of the question, after all. And if it gets Thor occupied with rehearsals on top of his recording sessions and everything else - occupied enough to keep him from seeing Loki... well, all the better.

\- - - - - -

Thor keeps himself busy.

He's got a concert to prepare for, and he wants to have enough material for a new album, an album to make up for his last one. Maybe he can pretend his last one never happened. 

He's given up on the idea of Loki coming to see him, though he knows the other man is in Nashville the week of his show. Which is perfectly fine, by the way. Thor doesn’t need the distraction, even though he has to drive by a fucking billboard with Loki's fucking face on it every day.

It’s fine. And the concert will be more than fine. And then he can finally start having fun again.

He misses when all of this was fun.

\- - - - - -

Loki isn't sure he's making a good decision or not, but something compels him to buy a ticket to Thor's concert. It's a whim, entirely, and he should be spending his time in Nashville doing other things, but he's listened to each of Thor's new singles and now simply has to see for himself.

Going by his music, Thor is doing better.

Going by the tabloids, he's been a shut-in recluse for the past year.

Going by the country music fanbase online, he's... not well-liked, mostly by virtue of his supposed relationship with Loki.

Loki had never seen the word faggot written out so many times before that one message board.

Still, he’s tempted enough that by the time the day rolls around, Loki has convinced himself that it’s going to be fine. Other artists attend each other’s concerts all the time, and Loki doesn’t see anything wrong with him going to see one of Thor’s.

When he finally gets to the venue though, and when they’re finally allowed to head inside, Loki does reconsider his presence. Some fans have already come over and asked for his autograph, and others besides who’ve sneered at him.

Loki even hears someone saying loudly, 

“And here we thought he’d changed! Guess once a fag always a fag!”

Loki rolls his eyes and just pushes his shades higher up his nose, thinking he should probably have put more effort into not being recognized. The uneasy feeling of stealing Thor’s night isn’t a good one. Still, Loki knows that once he’s in the relative safety of the darkness and the rush of the crowd from hearing Thor’s music, it’ll all be well. And he’ll be able to see Thor perform too - maybe even catch him after his show.

He’d been planning on meeting up, but Thor had been busy, and Loki didn’t want to divide the man’s attention. Maybe after the show though.

Maybe.

Thor comes out on the stage to scattered applause, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the bright stage lights and smiling. He looks healthier than the last time Loki had seen him, and at least sober enough not to make it obvious whether he's drunk or not. All good signs, Loki thinks to himself as the concert proper starts.

Even though Thor has started playing, though, Loki realizes that a great deal of the audience's attention isn't on Thor at all. It's on him.

Halfway through the first song, a whisper ripples through the crowd.

By the end of the second, there's starting to be scattered booing. 

By the third, there are chants for Loki to take the stage. Thor's eyes shoot up to the epicenter of the ruckus, where Loki is frozen in horror of what is happening.

Thor, though, tips his hat up and grins. "Y'all are absolutely right," he says. "Loki gives a much better show than I do. C'mon up here, superstar!”

Thor is putting on a show for the audience, that much Loki can tell, but he can also see the panic in his smile.

“Yeah, get off the stage, faggot!”

Someone from the crowd yells, and Loki feels the panic in Thor’s smile infecting his own being. That one call from that stupid motherfucker - whoever the hell it was, if Loki ever finds out, he’s going to have the man absolutely SKINNED - is the only thing needed to open the floodgates. The boos grow louder, and then the demeaning and just plain homophobic bullshit grows louder too.

“Fuck off, faggot!”

“Cocksucker!”

“Goddamn fruit!”

“Wanna take mine in the ass?!”

“Go to hell!”

Loki covers his mouth with his hands as the situation devolves, some people even daring to throw shit at the stage - but the calls are the worst. Loki can only hope that Thor doesn’t hear the fouler insults.

\- - - - - -

Thor stares as the crowd goes wild - not in the good sense of the word.

It’s the second time in his career that he walks off of the stage - but unlike the first time when he was greeted with silence, this time, his exit is greeted by cheers.

He's mortified, and furious, and how had nobody told him that might be the response? He gives the audience the finger with both hands and storms offstage, kicking over the spare drum kit set up just to the side as he goes, feeling a certain satisfaction even though he doesn't hear the clatter as well as he would have liked.

"GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!" 

And Loki had seen every moment.

Fuck. 

"Where are you going?" Fandral asks as Thor shoves his way to the door, to the waiting car. 

"For a fucking drink," Thor replies. He waits until he gets into the backseat before shaking two Xanax pills into the palm of his hand and swallowing them dry.

His heart is clenching and his lungs can't get enough air, and he doesn't really feel like letting anyone know how much getting booed - and getting booed partially because of who he'd dared to be open about his affection for - savagely tore him apart. 

Everything is fine. Hope Loki enjoyed the show.

\- - - - - -

The crowd doesn’t disperse even with Thor’s exit, but Loki does, shoving his way through the gathered crowd even with people trying to catch his attention as they recognize him. He doesn’t care that he’s basically throwing people off and being more than a little rude.

They were - are fucking horrible and he doesn’t regret forcing his way through.

All Loki cares about is Thor.

It’s only when he manages to head outside though that he realizes he has no fucking idea where to look.

He tries Thor’s phone, but it goes straight to voicemail.

“Thor, where are you? Please pick up. I’m worried about you, so please pick up and talk to me, okay? Listen to me, it was wrong and it shouldn’t have happened, and I am so, so sorry- please pick up.”

Loki doesn’t realize he’s got tears building up in his eyes until they’re slipping down his cheeks.

“Fuck...” he whispers, then more forcefully, “FUCK!!!”

"Volstagg's with him," he hears Fandral say behind him. "Dunno where they went, but if you wanted to wait at the house..." The man slips a key into Loki's hand. 

It's the best he can do. He goes to the house.

\- - - - - -

The sound of Thor returning jars Loki out of an uneasy doze, several agonizing hours later. Thor hasn't answered any of his calls or texts and it's getting to be nearly dawn by the time the front door slams open and Loki hears heavy, uncoordinated footsteps.

There’s a clatter and a crash, some cursing, then laughing and by now Loki has come out to the foyer. He's a little annoyed that Volstagg clearly has left already, leaving Thor to his own devices and Thor - 

Thor is hammered. He's splayed out where he'd fallen, head falling forward to rest his chin against his chest as he giggles to himself, fingers twitching.

Loki walks over and props him up when he starts to topple sideways, biting his lips when Thor doesn’t respond to the call of his name.

As it is, Loki can’t really talk to him like this anyways though, can’t help him work through and process what had happened. He’s also pretty sure Thor won’t be willing to talk to him about it even if he were sober - the only thing Loki can actually do now, as usual, is make sure Thor doesn’t accidentally die because of his impulsive idiocy.

“Alright... come on. Get up, Thor.”

The man snorts, pushing him away and laughing again as he reaches into his jacket pocket for something. When Loki notices the bright orange of a pill bottle in the man’s hand, he immediately reaches for it. Thor’s grip is strong despite his inebriated state, and the kick Loki gets on the stomach - though not necessarily painful, surprises him enough to render him motionless and staring.

Thor clumsily gets the cap off and shakes the entire bottle into his palm, some clattering to the floor. The man starts eyeing the drugs before popping them into his mouth one by one and swallowing them down.

“What the FUCK!” Loki manages to get out as he slaps Thor’s hands and makes the little pills scatter across the floor after Thor has taken about six of them.

Shit.

He manages to get behind the man and shoves his fingers inside Thor’s mouth, making him struggle and gag until he finally shudders and starts vomiting.

Six.

Loki needs to get six of those fucking things out.

He completely forgets to dial for emergency services.

\- - - - - -

Thor is dead weight as Loki tries to drag him to the shower. He's awake, but unable to be much help at all. Loki is at least able to count six partially dissolved pills in the spill of vomit across the floor, but who knows how much Thor had taken before this.

"Come ON," he grunts, managing to yank Thor into the shower stall, cranking up the cold water and letting it splash down, to wash away some of the filth Thor is covered in. 

He gags again, leaning far back enough that Loki grabs him by the collar to haul him up against the wall. "I don't want you to choke," he says when Thor tries to bat him away. "Please." Loki realizes his voice his shaking, his hands are shaking. His eyes are watering. 

"You don'... ge' th' fu... fff... fuck..."

“Please,” Loki repeats, patting Thor’s face when his eyes slip close, “please.”

Loki doesn’t know what he’s pleading for - for Thor to please not die? For him to please just let Loki help? For this entire fucking night to be just one long bad dream? Thor shudders, then heaves again, vomit splashing down -acrid and gritty - between them.

It’s enough to wake Thor again, and once more, the stubborn man resumes his struggles. 

“Ged’off! G... g’way... l’emme go... l’emme go...”

“No. Come on, baby, come here-“

They haven’t called each other any endearments since they’d first tried it out and laughed at the ridiculously sappy sound of them way back when, but it slips out now so naturally. More fall from his lips as Loki wraps Thor in an embrace when the man still tries to push him off and away. He’s pressed so close to Thor that he feels when the other starts pissing himself. The warmth of it against his legs and shins doesn’t deter Loki from tightening his hold though.

Thor loses consciousness before Loki can get him cleaned up.

He sits there in the shower stall as Thor's mess gets rinsed down the drain, arms wrapped around Thor, half for comfort and half to hold him in a more upright position. And he sobs.

\- - - - - -

When Thor wakes up, he barely acknowledges Loki's presence. Loki watches as Thor fumbles through changing his clothes, leaving the soiled ones on the floor of the shower.

"You can go now," Thor tells him, shuffling, nude, into the bedroom where he pours himself a drink, downing it before splaying out on the bed, moaning softly. 

"I'm not going anywhere right now," Loki murmurs. There's no way he could leave Thor like this, the way everyone else seems to have.

The man only lets out a sigh.

Loki changes out of his own damp clothes and rummages through Thor’s closet to find something relatively clean smelling and putting it on. When he glances back at the bed, he sees Thor once again with his eyes closed - lying down on his front with his face half buried in the pillows.

He walks over to it and places his hand on the man’s back, rubbing before pulling his sheets from under him to drape them over Thor’s back.

He knows Thor is awake. Knows the man isn’t yet ready to talk - if he ever will be, but Loki can at least let Thor know that he cares.

Loki does.

“Thor?”

“L’emme ‘lone.”

Loki shakes his head, but doesn’t push it. He can wait... he can wait for Thor to be ready to talk.

\- - - - - -

Except, Thor isn’t ready to talk that afternoon or in the evening, or the next day and the one after that, or the one after that. He doesn’t even so much as look at Loki. The few times he does engage Loki directly is when he’s drunk enough to do it, or on his pills. There have been calls from everyone, Hela, some of Thor’s buddies, Steve Rogers, hell even Tony - just asking about the state Thor is in.

The answer is always the same.

\- He’s still not talking. Just keeps fucking drinking.

Loki decides to finally put his foot down when nearly a week passes, and still there’s no apparent change or even plans to do so from Thor.

“We need to talk.”

“Fuck off.”

Loki grits his teeth. "No," he says firmly. "I can't watch you do this to yourself anymore."

"Nobody's makin' you stick around," Thor responds. It’s early in the day, he’s sober-ish, but well on his way to being completely shitfaced again. As he has been nearly non-stop this entire week. 

"You need to stop," Loki says, putting a hand on Thor's arm to keep him from reaching for his pills. "It’s - it's not good anymore."

Thor snorts and yanks his arm away.

"It hasn't been good for a while," he chuckles. "where have YOU been?" Thor’s expression darkens slightly and he lights a cigarette from the pack on the counter. "Oh right. You've been building your ffffuckin' career, doin' some pop metal Metallica bullshit?"

Thor takes a drag from his cigarette and slugs down half his drink. Loki scowls at him; he should have known this would go badly. 

"I guess," he replies evenly. 

Snorting into his glass, Thor shakes his head. "That's a fucking joke." Looking back up, he points a finger at Loki. "You're a fucking joke." 

Anger surges and Loki can't help the words that tumble out of his mouth. He's been the only one putting in any effort and this is how Thor treats him? "Better than being a washed up has been at thirty three!"

Thor's fiery stare nearly scalds him. The man remains silent for a moment, smoking, scowling. Turning away, Thor drains his glass. "Don't let me hold you back, superstar," he drawls, and walks away.

\- - - - - -

Loki’s words rip into him like nobody else’s words have ever ripped into him before. Every inch of him, Thor feels, is like a live wire, gutted and exposed and just fucking burning and crackling.

It’s as though his insides have melted and leaked out of him, and no matter how much Thor drinks to fill himself back up again - no matter how many bottles he drowns himself in, he remains as he’s been his entire fucking life:

Empty.

There’s absolutely nothing left for anyone to take anymore, if there’s been anything at all from the start.

“Washed up has-been...” Thor repeats to himself as he shuts himself in his room and avoids Loki, “a washed up has-been.”

Thor sits at the edge of his bed, looking up at the ceiling fan that’s going around in dizzying circles, much like how he himself always manages to cycle back to this point. At this, a song starts to play in Thor’s head, one he thinks he’s listened to almost a dozen times now this week.

Maybe they’re all right and Thor is nothing but a glorified cash cow framed nice and pretty until a better, brighter, more well-adjusted person takes the spotlight. Something that’s outlived its use.

‘A washed up has-been,’ Thor’s mind supplies.

Thor knocks back some pills and some hard liquor.

The fan continues its slow revolutions as the room starts to spin in the opposite direction. It hardly matters anymore what the fan or the room are doing, really. It's not like he has a career anymore, and it will take years to rebuild his fame, if he's able to scrape any of it back together at all.

He hardly even wants to try.

In fact, he decidedly doesn't want to try. It's all he's done, his entire professional life, is try to impress people.

His father.

The label.

The audience. 

And what has that gotten him? A life that hurts. A life that is devoid of any sort of affection or connection. He had thought he'd had something different with Loki, but apparently not. 

Thor runs his fingers over the belt discarded on his bed, picking it up and looping it experimentally. Taking a swig from the bottle, he decides to see how it feels around his neck. 

The leather is cool and unyielding. He tightens the loop until he feels his circulation and air flow getting cut off. That feels good. Letting go of the loop, he decides to take things one step further.

See how it feels to stand on a chair below the ceiling fan. Okay, that feels alright too. What does it feel like to throw the belt over the fan, to step off the chair, to...

Plummet to the floor in a pile of sparking metal and plaster as the fan gives way under his weight and he falls to the ground, belt still wrapped around his neck. 

"FUCK!" Thor screams at the top of his lungs.

The house goes silent, but Thor doesn’t know if that’s because nobody is there, or because of the ringing that’s starting up in his ears. Either way, Thor feels his life crack into even more pieces.

He doesn’t cry though.

Thor just stays on the ground.

He can’t even fucking kill himself right.

\- - - - - -

Loki doesn’t bother going after Thor when the man storms to his room and doesn’t come down. He doesn’t bother to check on the man when he hears a crash and a scream.

He doesn’t bother, leaving the house as soon as his driver calls him up to tell Loki he’s at the driveway.

He doesn't bother to text Thor either, not until days later, and only then it's a terse, "good luck".

He just can't do it anymore. He has to let Thor go.

\- - - - - -

Thor leaves the wreck of his fan in the middle of his bedroom floor. He could certainly hire someone to replace it, clean the place up a little, but he doesn't want to see anyone, even a housekeeper he wouldn't even need to talk to.

Instead, he crawls into bed and doesn't emerge for days except to use the bathroom and replenish his liquor stocks from the kitchen. He doesn't eat. He barely sleeps. He sits in his bed and watches television blankly, waiting for the phone to ring. 

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Waiting for someone to check on him. 

Waiting for the courage to try killing himself again. 

Just waiting. 

Loki is all over his TV, already another album out and this one, it seems, is as much about Thor as the last one. But this one is angrier, this one rakes him across coals.

It’s a huge hit, but Thor only feels a drop of bitter resentment before it goes back to nothingness. Thor doesn’t care anymore that Loki’s songs are well-received, can’t bring himself to care about the words that describe him as an emotional leech, a burden, a selfish drunk - Thor can’t bring himself to care about anything at all.

Steve tries to contact him, tries to talk to him, tries to help and make things better, but Thor can’t find the energy to put in the effort for the other man. The man stops after a while, and Thor is fully expecting another label to drop him.

It’s all he can do to even go through each day, waiting for a sign.

None come.

Thor interprets that as a sign in itself.


	7. Everything's Okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA "So After All, Everything's in Pretty Good Shape"
> 
> Thor and Loki dabble in domestic stability, but it's only the calm before the storm.

"Heard the news?" Tony asks, giving Loki a wolfish grin from across the desk. 

Loki drapes himself over the chair and shrugs. "No, should I have?"

He doesn't really have time to keep up with current events these days, with non stop touring and appearances on SNL and The Tonight Show and every other talk show to exist, plus radio and endorsement deals. 

He doesn't even have time to write these days, though truthfully he's kind of tapped out of material at the moment. All of his previous songs had been about Thor, and since it's been so long since he's even thought about the other man... 

Well, he can coast on his first two albums for a while, that's a bonus. 

"Grammy nominations were announced," Stark baits, still grinning. Loki feels his heart rate pick up a bit. 

"Oh yeah?"

Play it cool.

"Best rock song, best alternative album, best country solo performance for your LA show, song of the year, and best new artist."

Loki stares.

Five. Five categories. He's nominated for five Grammy awards for one season's worth of work. His mouth feels dry, his vision tunnels just a little. "There... are you... seriously?" 

Tony nods. "Seriously. Good job, superstar. I knew you had the right stuff." 

The nickname brings everything screeching to a halt.

Thor. 

This wouldn't be happening if not for Thor. "I need to make a phone call," Loki squeaks.

Tony waves him off, and Loki finds a room that’s empty and secluded enough from the main halls that he knows nobody would hear or disturb him. Still, he locks the door before he picks his phone up and scrolls through his contact list until he stops at Thor’s name.

The man’s face flashes when he dials it, and Loki has to bite his lip at the feelings that get reawakened just from that alone. He brings the phone to his ear and listens to the dial tone until it goes to voicemail.

“Please pick up,” Loki says, then drops it to call again.

Thor never answers him, and despite the want - the need for him to talk to the other man, to thank him, to just... hear Thor’s voice and share the giddiness of Loki’s success, he knows he can’t force it even if he wants to.

Loki stands in the empty room for a long time, feeling the excitement and the overwhelming pride ebb away.

Who else does Loki have to share this news with but Thor?

“Fuck...” Loki curses as the memory of their last interaction comes to mind. The things he’d said... “Laufeyson, you stupid fuck.”

He books a flight to Nashville, leaving that night. 

\------

The yard, gardens, and woods around Thor's house are overgrown. The mail is piling up. There are shingles missing and a shutter is hanging askew, making the house look a little lopsided. 

Loki uses the key he'd never returned, and enters the house, realizing only then that all the windows have been newspaper'd over to block the light. "Thor?" 

There's movement further into the house, and Loki proceeds cautiously, kicking aside empty bottles and waving a hand in front of his face. It smells like something died in there, and Loki really hopes the immediate direction his mind takes is incorrect.

"Thor? Are you here?"

"You here about the cable?" comes Thor's gravelly voice from the living room. Loki creeps in to see Thor leaning over a bucket filled with ice and beer, grabbing a bottle as he continues, slurred and rambling, about how Cinemax had gone out and the sports were fuzzy. 

"Thor?" 

Thor straightens, then turns to face Loki, recognition dawning in his eyes. "Loki! Oh my God! It's so good to see you!" Suddenly Loki finds himself enveloped in a hug that smells like body odor and beer. 

Not the response he had expected.

Also not the man he’d expected.

Thor is barely recognizable with his beard and hair, almost as overgrown as the flora outside. He’s also a bit... chunkier, Loki thinks kindly - softer around the edges as he tightens his embrace enough to make Loki feel constricted. He hesitantly wraps his own arms around the man, squeezing before pulling away to get a better look at him.

Thor is smiling. It breaks Loki’s heart rather than assures him.

“What’re you doin’ in town, superstar? Last I heard you were all over th’place. Must be nice - must be good,” Thor rambles again, “whaddya want? Y’want beer? Whiskey? Tequila? We got lots of things. Lots of things.”

“We?”

Thor laughs and throws his head back, pointing over to a blank spot, until Loki realizes the man is gesturing towards the statue in the corner,

“Oh y’know, my friends. That o’er there’s Korg and the lil’ guy he’s holding, that’s Miek. They’re really helpful l’emme show you!”

Thor ambles over with his beer bottle, and only then does Loki realize the use as Thor uncaps the lid against the sharp jut of a bottle opener - “Miek” in “Korg’s” hands. Thor chuckles as he brings it up to his lips with a salute and a muttered “thanks guys” before turning back to Loki with a grin,

“Really, really helpful.”

Loki feels his heart twist, walking over and stopping the man from bringing his drink to his lips again. Thor lets out another chuckle, but this one sounds a bit more nervous,

“What? Y’wanna have my beer? S’fine- I was thinking whiskey ‘nyways.”

"Maybe just cool it for a minute so we can talk," Loki suggests, though he doubts forgoing another drink will make much difference to Thor's overall sobriety level. 

Thor definitely looks nervous now. "Right, right, talk, of course," he mutters, seemingly more to himself than to Loki, and shuffles unsteadily to the couch, which looks even more stained than before. 

Thor basically falls onto it and Loki winces, wondering where anyone else in Thor's life has been all this time. 

\--------

Loki is here. Loki is here. Loki is here.

It keeps repeating in Thor's head like a mantra, like a broken record, like it's the only thing he'll ever be able to think ever again.

He hasn't seen another soul in ages - besides his friends. His still, non judgemental, silent friends - and now suddenly Loki is here, sitting across from him on the other side of the coffee table strewn with prescription bottles. 

"When was the last time you left the house?" Loki asks, his tone gentle. Thor bristles, because that's kind of a personal question, and who cares if he doesn't actually know the answer because it's perfectly normal to just have everything delivered. To block the windows. To shut out the world. 

He shrugs. "Oh, you know," he manages to get out.

They’re silent for a minute, and it’s already a minute too long for Thor. He eyes his beer longingly, bringing his fingers up to his lip to bite at his nails when Loki still doesn’t speak for another minute or two.

“Have you eaten anything yet?”

“Oh yeah,” Thor answers, though he isn’t sure if the memory of eating guacamole and chips is from earlier in the morning or yesterday - possibly two yesterdays ago, “had some food. Yup. I’m doing good.”

Loki has that look on his face again - that look - the look that Dad used to have, that Hela used to have, like Tony, like Steve, like every-fucking-one. Thor hates that look so much. He knows what is going to come after those looks, so he doesn’t even give Loki the chance to speak.

“Y’didn’t answer my question. S’nice to see you n’ all but. Yeah, m’wondering why?” Thor tries to piece together, his head and his mouth not cooperating.

It’s been so long since he’s needed to actually TALK. Thor doesn’t want this particular instance to be focused on him at all, because he doesn’t know how to explain away the state of his home and his person and his entire life - nope.

“Heard your songs,” Thor continues, giving in to the urge to reach for his beer again, “personally don’t like the style still but you - you’re... I listened. That’s what’s ‘mportant, right? That I listened? Anyway what were we talkin’ about? Oh - right. Why are you here?”

Loki twists his hands in his lap, as if he's the one nervous about this. As if he's the one who has to figure out how to play off - all of this. "I - I wanted to see you," he says. 

Thor snorts. "Psshh, bullshit," he says, tipping the bottle against his lips. Some of the beer trickles into his beard, but he hardly cares about that sort of thing anymore. He just cares about getting the booze into his body. 

"I'm nominated for a few Grammys," Loki explains after a few more moments of silence, wherein Thor swallows down a xanax with the rest of the bottle of beer because now that the silence has been broken, he can't stand to sit in it. 

"That so?" he asks, voice cracking, trying to decide if he's thrilled or devastated.

In the end, it turns out he feels nothing.

“If you hadn’t given me the chance, this would never have happened. I just... I wanted to thank you and... well,” Loki looks away, “I don’t exactly have anyone else to share the news with.”

Thor almost laughs, because isn’t that just sad? He doesn’t though, and Thor only nods his head. Loki looks as though he doesn’t know what else to say, and Thor takes pity on him - the man came all the way out here after all, and Thor is... grateful to at least be acknowledged for his part. No matter that the only one Loki needs to thank for his success is himself, and maybe Stark.

“M’proud of you, Lo. Really. You deserve it.”

Loki looks up, a spark of hope in his eyes that Thor doesn’t really understand, then there’s a hesitant smile on his face.

“Thank you. Thor, I... about the last time I was here...”

Thor holds up a hand, shaking his head as he gets up, wiping his hands on his week-old sweatpants,

“We don’t talk ‘bout that here. So uh, if that was all? M’sure you’ve got a lot to prepare for. Press tours n’ airtime n’ talk shows? I’ve uh... got stuff to do as well.”

Thor doesn’t actually have anything to do - but he’s got plans. Loki looks like he knows those plans.

Of course he would.

“I want you as my plus one.”

\- - - - - - -

The words are out of his mouth before he can think about them, and then Loki feels fucking horrible for wanting to take it back, so he doesn’t. Thor, and Loki doesn’t know whether he’s pretending to spare Loki or maybe fucking with him, or genuinely didn’t hear, tilts his ear towards where Loki’s sitting at,

“I’m sorry, didn’t catch that. What?”

Loki takes a deep breath, then another, and one more for good measure, not wanting his voice to give away anything but conviction, “I want you to attend. If you want.”

Thor keeps his head tilted, as though he can't possibly understand what Loki is asking of him. "Oh, uh, thanks but, I've got - I have a lot going on here." 

Loki sighs as Thor opens another beer.

"Please, Thor?" he asks. He could just drop it, take Thor's refusal at face value and walk away. It would be much easier if he just walked away now. "Who else would I share this with?" That's part of it, of course.

Thor shakes his head, tangled hair whipping across his face. "I dunno, I'm sure - there's probably someone, yeah? I can't -" 

Thor is definitely a mess unfit to be in public at the moment, but Loki is sure with a thorough scrubbing and a decent suit, he could clean up okay. He wonders why he's even bothering to pursue this. 

He decides why when Thor looks at him like he's about to burst into tears. What happened to the cocky party boy Loki had met at that bar? What happened to the country mega celebrity who'd had everyone eating out of his hand?

Loki doesn’t know.

Maybe it was all a facade that Thor’s been putting up for all these years, and Loki was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. In this case, the final person Thor had trusted and who’d hurt him enough to push him over the edge.

Pushed him past the point of the classic country boy persona he was putting up.

Loki swallows down a lump in his throat.

He... really did fuck Thor up, didn’t he?

He hadn’t been there, or tried hard enough. Had been so consumed by the spotlight and the rush of the life that he’d set aside the person who brought him into this world in the first place. Loki hadn’t even been as compassionate the past few times they’d met after LA.

And Loki had the gall to say all those horrible things to him too...

“I want to... I want to do right by you, Thor. The only reason I’m even here is because... well. I haven’t been a very good friend, or a very good... partner,” Loki hazards, because where exactly did they stand now? “I haven’t been good to you. At all. I want to... make up for it.”

There's a flash of bitterness that crosses Thor's expression, but as Loki watches, it fades as soon as it appeared.

"S'alright," Thor replies with a shrug. "I was an asshole, s'all."

It's said with such matter of fact self-deprecation that Loki's heart hurts a little, knowing just how miserable Thor has been all this time. The man is wandering the room now, beer bottle clutched in his fist, picking up one thing after another and putting it back down. 

"I want you to come with me, please?" Loki prompts, crossing to Thor and grabbing his hand to prevent him from continuing to fidget with everything in the room. 

Thor looks around their squalid surroundings. "No, no, I don't - I dont think I will," he stammers.

Loki holds fast when Thor tries to pull away, peering into the man’s eyes. Thor turns away, unable to - unwilling to meet Loki’s own. Loki holds the man’s face in his hands to force him to anyways.

“Please,” Loki implores,

“Why?” Thor asks.

Loki wonders the same thing himself. Before Thor can pull away again though, Loki impulsively leans up to wrap his arms around the man’s shoulders. There’s no disguising the fact that he can clearly smell the stench of neglect, but Loki doesn’t dare let go, even when he feels the man tense.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to convince you.”

Thor remains tense in Loki's arms for a moment, then softens, hesitant, wrapping his own around Loki, his whole body shuddering slightly.

"It's gonna be okay," Loki says, wishing he knew if it was a lie or not. 

\------

The Grammys are a week away, and all Loki can focus on is Thor. He barely makes sense anymore, even when he's not completely legless with Xanax and liquor. He's clearly sick, too, his eyes yellowed, his coughing fits wetter and harsher than they once were. 

He says he has a doctor that comes to check on him whenever he needs his prescriptions refilled, but Loki is disinclined to believe the doctor is actually a helpful doctor and not the kind of doctor that gets put in prison when one of their celebrity patients die of an OD. 

At the moment, his concern is getting Thor to eat something.

Thor is being ostensibly difficult though, not wanting to eat anything besides takeout - and even then, he usually just takes a couple of bites, more keen on drinking than actually getting food inside of him. Loki insists on cooking today though, because if anything, maybe he can guilt Thor into a proper meal through it.

“You should get a haircut. And a shave,” Loki suggests as he herds Thor towards the table once he’s done preparing, “we could go out and-“

“NO!” Thor yells, and Loki jumps. The man looks a bit apologetic and softens his voice, “No. I don’t want to go anywhere.”

Loki frowns in displeasure.

He was planning on getting the man to a proper clinic, to get seen to by a proper doctor, but Thor has been adamantly refusing to leave the house, though for what reason, Loki can’t fathom.

“At least think about it...”

\- - - - - -

Thor eats the food Loki cooked for him, not even tasting a single thing, in the hopes of convincing the man not to drag him out. Though, if he really thinks about it, Thor can do anything he wants and Loki won’t be able to force him. 

But…

But - he also doesn’t really want Loki to get fed up with him again and leave. It’s been a really good few days (weeks?) since the man came by and stayed, and Thor... has gotten used to him again. He’s not sure what he’s going to do if that happens again.

Thor isn’t sure what he’s going to do either once Loki leaves to attend the Grammy’s because Thor sure as hell won’t be going with him.

He can't. There's no way he's going to be able to leave his house like this, and he doesn't want to leave his house anyway. What will be gained from going to the Grammys? Nothing. He'll be mocked and ridiculed on national television - again - and have to watch Loki win awards for songs that wouldn't exist if not for Thor.

He likes it better here. It's safer here. He doesn't have to hear anyone talking behind his back. He doesn't have to give, and give, and give, and give, and give to people who never give him anything back. He has everything he needs, and now he has Loki again too... but he's definitely going to lose Loki.

"Come on, Thor," Loki is cajoling, trying to get him to put on something besides sweatpants after Thor spends lunch pushing food around his plate and drinking three beers.

"I like these," Thor protests. The sweatpants are comfortable. They don't feel too tight. They're soft against his skin. They're safe.

"At least let me help you wash your hair," Loki prompts, as if the Grammys are tonight and Thor needs to look presentable.

“No,” Thor mumbles around a mouthful of chips he’d nabbed from the cupboards, shoving more into his cheek to excuse himself from talking some more or explaining.

Thor doesn’t like talking or explaining. He can’t put his thoughts together quite as well as he used to - and that’s saying something because he was basically unintelligible even before. Now? Now he’s everything the tabloids and the talk shows say he is - he’s everything that Loki told him he is. And yeah, maybe it’s his own fault for fucking himself up, but that doesn’t mean Thor likes subjecting himself to the kind of judgement that always seems to wait for him outside of his safe haven.

“Thor...”

“I don’t want to go out.”

“Come on, we don’t need to go out. Just let me help you wash up.”

Thor pouts, hurt twisting inside his chest though he knows Loki only means well, “I know I smell like shit. You don’t have to stay here, y’know. I’ll manage. Like I’ve always managed. You should be getting ready an’ all.”

Thor moves towards the living room where he plants himself on the couch, surfing through fuzzy channels. Loki sits right next to him, so close that their legs are flush against each other’s, shoulders bumping. Thor likes it, and he hates it at the same time.

“That’s not... please don’t twist my words.”

“Funny, you’re the one who’s good at that,” Thor says, though he doesn’t know what he means by it.

“I’m not going to stop bothering you.”

Thor sighs.

Loki’s brand of caring for him...

Thor loves it and he hates it - just like how he loves and hates the man himself.

"Go fuck yourself," he invites, and locks himself in his bedroom for a few hours, poking at the pile of broken ceiling fan. 

\--------

Thor is infuriating. He's always been infuriating, from the very beginning, but this is a new level of infuriating. This is worse, because Thor seems unable to control his behavior at this point. Not that Loki thinks Thor was ever truly in control of his behavior. 

He's at the end of his rope, realizing that Thor is going to resist and resist and resist and he certainly is in no shape to fly across the country to the awards show. Finally, he calls Hela.

"Have you talked to Thor recently?" is the first thing he asks.

There's silence on the other end of the line for a moment. "You know our dad died alone and miserable and drunk, in a house that was falling apart. He always did want Thor to follow in his footsteps." 

Loki's stomach drops. "We need to do something," he insists. 

"I did everything I could," Hela replies. "For both of them."

“Maybe you think you have, and that’s fine. That’s fair. But I haven’t, and I don’t want to just keep giving up on him every fucking time, but he’s... god. I don’t even know!” Loki says with a bit of an edge to his voice, then he mellows down a little, “I don’t want him to end up like that, though... so I... I need your help.”

“I will. But even then, you might have to prepare yourself for it anyways.”

Loki bristles, jaw working as her words register. How could she be so callous? She’s his only blood-relative left. Surely she’s got to feel something for Thor other than resignation at the man’s prospects.

“How did you manage to get him back to music? Or fuck, get him functional again?” Loki asks instead of accusing - instead of lashing out.

He’d be no different from Thor if he did that.

Loki knows Thor had started young, already giving amateur performances at local bars and stages that would have him from the tender age of seventeen. That time, Thor had mostly been doing covers and his renditions of classic hits, his own originals flopping and too unrefined until finally putting out a single that skyrocketed him into the radars of recording companies at twenty-two.

Loki knows there were a few years of stagnation again after that though, before Thor once again came out with a top grossing album at twenty eight.

“You don’t just get Thor out of throwing his fucking life away. If he doesn’t think he’s come to the decision himself, he won’t be doing shit.”

"I don't know if he's capable of making decisions right now," Loki admits. He feels like he should be keeping Thor in his sights at all times, should be watching him around the clock. The man had been bad at taking care of himself before, but in more of a careless, reckless way. A way that was considerably more fun - at least on the surface - than how Thor is living now. 

He can practically see Hela's shrug through the phone.

"Sing with him," she suggests. "That usually reminds him that he really loves the music part of all this crap." 

Again the idea of a collaboration album crosses Loki's mind. They should have put one out ages ago, they should have. Loki shouldn't have taken all the songs they'd worked on together for his own debut album. He should have...

Done a lot different, honestly. He heads to the piano, sits down, and starts to play.

\-------

Thor can hear music from another room. Not well, not clearly, the ringing is getting worse and worse, but he can hear the piano. It's a little out of tune, but it's still... it's still music. He hasn't heard music in - forever. 

He emerges from his bedroom, shuffling into the music room with its once-beautiful grand piano and pristine guitars. Most of the guitars have been smashed to pieces. Loki is sitting at the piano, playing a song Thor has never heard before. The way Loki is plucking at the keys and hesitating as he sings suggests this is a new song. 

"What's that?" Thor asks.

"I'm writing something," Loki replies.

Thor doesn’t ask anything else, and Loki begins playing again. The man’s propensity for Thor’s type of music has all but been erased, replaced by the new style that goes with the dumb image Stark has him putting forward. It doesn’t sound as nice as it potentially could. Still, the lyrics are masterfully crafted, raw as they are.

“S’good,” Thor says, biting on the edges of his thumb. He doesn’t want to impose, but it sounds all wrong with the upbeat tempo Loki is playing the notes in, “can I?”

Instead of looking offended or put off like Thor had expected, there’s a small smile on the other man’s face.

“Of course,” Loki says, standing up, but Thor shakes his head, waving him to sit back down as he picks up one of his guitars that is still in tune. Funnily enough, it’s the one he’d always lugged around when he and Loki performed together during those months on his tour.

“What uh... what key?” Thor asks, because he hasn’t really done this in a while.

Loki shrugs, “I was thinking G major.”

Thor starts plucking and Loki shuts up entirely. Thor’s got his eyes trained on the little notepad - Jesus fuck, it’s miraculously still the same one from that first time they’d played one of Loki’s songs - then sings a verse of it haltingly,

“Tell me something, boy.  
Aren’t you tired tryin’ to fill that void-  
Or do you need more?  
Ain’t it hard keeping it so hardcore-“

Thor stops, frowns, then looks at Loki, “That about me?”

Instead of answering, Loki plays the next part on the piano, mimicking the pace and mood Thor had set. Thor stares as the man sings it a little bit more surely with the lyrics only in his head,

“I’m falling - in all the good times,  
I find myself longin’ for change.  
And in the bad times, I fear myself.”

The force of Loki’s vocals as he sings what Thor assumes is the chorus catches him off guard, and try as he might not to, Thor can’t help but fall a little bit more in love with the man.

When Loki stops after a couple of lines, Thor improvises as he strums out a simple combination of chords on the guitar, just repeating the word ‘shallow’ with different inflections to it.

When Thor notices that Loki is boring holes into him with his eyes, he stops with a nervous laugh, fidgeting with the guitar strap.

“That was really good,” Loki says after a few seconds of silence, and his voice sounds wet. Thor looks back at the man and finds him a little misty eyed.

“Pretty fuckin’ good, yeah. No surprise there. Didn’t expect nothin’ less from you, superstar.”

Loki makes a face at that, but it's true. Loki is a superstar. He's proven it time and again in his albums and his performances and the fact he's now apparently eclipsing Thor in terms of awards won and platinum records produced. And this song... it's just more of the same. Thor hasn't written a song in months. Maybe a year. He's lost track of time, unsure exactly of how long it's even been since he and Loki last performed together.

"It wasn't good until you played with it," Loki points out. 

Thor looks down at his hands, calloused from years of guitar playing. The fingernails are yellowed and cracked, bitten down to the quick. Nicotine stains show the hand he most often smokes with. He has made millions with these hands. With his voice and his words. 

"It's your words," he says softly.

“They could be yours too,” he hears Loki answer in response.

Thor lifts his eyes to stare at the man, then shakes his head at the small smile he has on his face. Thor really doesn’t like the emotions that rise inside of him at that expression on Loki’s face. It’s as though the man is glad to hear him singing - and while Thor feels good about being able to put that happy light on the younger man’s face, it makes him feel horrible too for not doing it often enough.

Thor has always been a disappointment to those closest to him.

“Play something for me?”

The request is honest enough, and Thor huffs out a little laugh. Oh, Loki is good - luring him out here with music and now making him play.

Still, there’s no harm in indulging - for just a little while. Thor nudges the man to make room on the piano seat.

Just a little while.

\--------

Thor, Loki notices, stays away from playing many of his own songs. He plays Hank Williams and Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash. He plays Toby Keith and even delves into rock and roll a bit when he plays Doom and Gloom by the Rolling Stones. But he only plays one or two of his own all the way through. He starts and stops a few times on a couple of them, but then switches into something else. 

It's as if Thor is afraid of his own work, and that makes Loki immeasurably sad. It hardly seems fair, honestly. Thor's talent is so raw, so open... and now it's as though they're rekindling a tiny flame, fragile and ready to be blown out at any moment. 

After what feels like no time at all, but is at least the length of one of Thor's usual concerts, his hands still on the keys.

"That's all I've got in me right now," he rasps, reaching for the beer he hasn't touched since he began to play.

Loki stops him short, prying his fingers from the neck and settling it down beside one of the legs of the great grand piano. There’s a spot of condensation on the shiny black where the beer sat, and Loki wipes that away first before turning back to Thor, who hasn’t moved his hand from where it’s grasped in Loki’s own.

“Thank you,” Loki says by way of starting, observing the way Thor brushes it off like it doesn’t matter.

Like his talent doesn’t matter.

And by extension, like he doesn’t matter.

“I’ve missed listening to you. Singing with you.”

“You’d be the only one,” Thor mumbles, slipping his hand from Loki’s now to rub at his ear.

Loki doesn’t necessarily believe that, but he knows how far Thor had fallen in the eyes of the general public after the show here at Nashville, though that wasn’t even the man’s fault. It wasn’t even a day later when articles had popped up, speculating what the man had gotten wrong THIS time, not even talking about how Loki’s presence most definitely aggravated the horrible crowd that night.

“You’re still amazing nonetheless,” Loki insists, reaching a hand to rub at the side of Thor’s cheek, near his ear. “You’ve always been amazing.”

Thor looks uncomfortable, and the man gets up with an exaggerated clearing of his throat, “Y’know that shower sounds like a good idea now. I’ll... I’ll get back to you.”

Loki sighs, bringing his phone out and typing out a message to Hela.

\- He sang for me. Thanks for the tip.

Theres a pause and then she replies,

\- Good. He should start to turn around if you got him that far.

Loki sure hopes so.

\------

Thor stands beneath the spray of the shower, drinking the whiskey he keeps tucked in the toilet tank to both keep it cold and to hide it from himself. 

It had felt so good to sing again, to play again, even if his own words had kept getting stuck in his throat. It's still more than he's done in ages, and it felt... it felt natural, right. 

It felt like it's what he is supposed to be doing. And with Loki there... it had been like... he had never fucked up. Like he had never ruined the one good thing to happen to him since he'd gotten signed with Stark, over a decade ago now. 

Still, he isn't sure he's ready to do anything besides sing other people's songs in the privacy of his own home.

\- - - - - - 

Loki waits for nearly half an hour before he decides to go check on the other man, taking the steps two at a time. When he enters Thor’s bedroom, he’s immediately stricken by thick, choking panic at what he finds.

There’s a broken ceiling fan in the middle, a chair slightly to the side, and on the chair is a belt.

Loki is no idiot - and it doesn’t take a genius to know what happened to cause such a scene.

“Thor?” He calls out loudly, heading to the en suite bathroom.

He finds the man curled in the corner of the shower stall, a bottle of whiskey glued to his lips as water rains down on him. Loki wants to throw a fit at how quickly Thor let himself go back to the drinking, but manages to keep a lid on it. When he walks into the shower stall to shut the water off, Thor looks up and almost flinches when their eyes meet.

“M’sorry,” Thor says softly, voice cracking, then he starts sobbing, “m’sorry. M’so sorry- I didn’t- I don’t- m’sorry!”

Loki gets to his knees and in an instant, he’s got an armful of crying Thor - apologizing over and over. Loki is reminded of the last time they’d been like this - when Thor came back home hammered from that failed concert and started popping pills into his mouth. Was he... trying to kill himself even then? Was that when he tried to hang himself too, and Loki had just... left?

Even that time Loki had dropped by when Thor met with Hela and Stark... he’d come back to find Thor groping for a shard of glass too. Did he also mean to end his life then?

Loki tightens his hold on the other man, feeling his own tears drip down his cheeks.

“Let me help you get cleaned up.”

"I - I'm sorry-" Thor keeps hiccuping out between sobs. "I can’t -" He cuts himself off as Loki helps him to his feet. Loki isn't sure how much whiskey was in the bottle when Thor started on it, but its three quarters empty now, so he moves slowly. 

"Hey, shh, I'm not mad," he assures Thor, propping the man up against the wall so he can grab a towel. He's not mad. He's... disappointed. 

Though honestly, he supposes he shouldn't be surprised. He doubts Thor even really wants to be drinking like he is at this point. "Hey," he says softly as he wraps Thor in the cleanest towel he could find. "What would you say about... getting some help?"

Thor pulls away. "Don't need it," he grunts as Loki leads him back into the bedroom. He isn't positive any if Thor's clothes are actually clean, but he finds a pair of sweatpants that have fewer stains on them than the others and hands them over.

"Thor." 

Thor shakes his head, refusing to make eye. "I'd have to go... out... I don't wanna."

Loki sighs. "Think about it, anyway?" Maybe if he just keeps engaging Thor with music, they can make some headway. Except he's starting to realize it's entirely possible Thor won't be coming with him to the Grammys.

Thor doesn’t answer as he moves to sit on the bed, eyes trained on the floor. No, not the floor. The broken fan on the floor. Loki shifts so he’s blocking the man’s view of it, planting himself between Thor’s legs.

He cups the man’s face in both hands, makes him look up, “I’m not giving up on you. Not again.”

Thor’s face breaks a little more before he composes himself and his expression goes blank, save for the minute little twitches, eyes dropping somewhere on the floor again. He says nothing as Loki strokes his cheek with a thumb, just leaning into the touch as his shoulders slump. Loki crouches so he’s at eye level with the man, resting his hands on Thor’s thighs now.

“I’m not giving up on you,” Loki repeats, with more force this time, more confidence - more conviction. “All you have to do is trust me. That’s all you have to do.”

Thor whimpers slightly, sagging where he sits, covering his face with his hands. "Everyone I know goes away in the end," he pushes out, with a wet chuckle at the end of it, turning into a short coughing fit. 

"I'm not leaving you again," Loki assures him firmly. He knows it for certain, now, especially seeing the remnants of the fan, putting it together with the rest of it all. 

Thor looks up at that, hugging himself tightly. "E'ryone always does." He looks down again. "I hit Hela," he admits suddenly. "S'why she won't come back. I hurt everybody. I'm gonna hurt you too."

"You didn't hurt me," Loki tells him. "I hurt you. A few times. It was wrong and I'm... I want to... I want to help you."

“Too far gone,” Thor says absently, and Loki feels the tight coil of emotions in his chest again.

“No,” he tells the man. “No, Thor, you aren’t. As long as you’re still here, as long as you’re still alive, there’s no such thing as too far gone.”

Thor’s answering smile for Loki’s sentiments is heartbreaking with how devoid it is of warmth. He looks as though he’s smiling at something silly a toddler said, and won’t bother correcting. Or as though he’s arrived at a conclusion - or stumbled upon a secret - that Loki will never know. It opens up a pit of anxious dread inside of Loki as he remembers Hela’s words, about Loki needing to prepare himself for...

No.

No, Loki won’t accept that.

He won’t let Thor go again, not ever.

\- - - - -

Thor stays in bed for the rest of that day, not bothering to get up or respond to Loki when the man tries to spur him into doing something or the other. He just stays in bed and watches as Loki tries to tidy up, throwing empty bottles and detritus, grabbing his clothes and leaving for a bit to throw them in the wash. Thor watches as the man tries to move the remains of his fan to a corner where it’s out of the way too, before asking Thor to move do he can change the beddings.

Thor just rolls to his side, closing his eyes. He’s too tired for anything else.

He's always tired, now. A bone-aching exhaustion that keeps him from moving for days at a time. And there's pain, now, too, some of the time, sharp and insistent in his abdomen, but Percocet makes it stop and Xanax makes him care less and the booze... well. In any case, it's hardly worth his attention.

It doesn't matter, anyway. If he goes, he goes. 

\------

It takes Loki the rest of the day to make Thor's room, the living room, kitchen, and bathroom fully inhabitable again. There are holes in the drywall the size of Thor's fist and there's nothing he can do about that right now, but maybe it's a project they can tackle together. 

First he needs to get Thor out of bed again. He returns to the music room, sitting back down at the piano. He starts to play one of Thor's songs, closing his eyes and losing himself in the rhythm of it. 

He's so lost in it that he doesn't hear the soft shuffling footsteps behind him until Thor is sitting beside him on the bench.

Loki nudges their shoulders together as he brings the song to a close, and opens his eyes to find Thor staring at him. He lifts his lips in a small smile, then elbows Thor’s side a little.

“Play something,” Loki says, and when Thor acquiesces, he laughs a little. 

The familiar notes of ‘Heart and Soul’ fill the music room, a ridiculously upbeat tune, but Loki plays along with it anyways. Loki is grinning genuinely by the time they’re halfway into it, and when they finish, he finds his cheeks ache from holding it for so long. 

Loki turns to Thor, raising an eyebrow, “You trying to tell me something?”

Thor shrugs.

“Well. I hope I’m not being presumptuous then,” Loki takes his hand and presses them to his lips, Thor’s knuckles twitching slightly. He plants a soft kiss on the other’s palm and sighs slightly. “What do you want to play ne-“

“I loved you, you know.”

Loki takes a sharp breath, letting it out as slowly as he can, “And now?”

Thor looks at him carefully, and he looks... almost sober. A little tired. "I think I could love you again," he says carefully. "I don't know if I ever stopped. That's why it - why I-" He cuts off abruptly. 

"Why it hurt you so much when I stayed away?" Loki ventures. He can't help but feel guilty; he'd barely spared Thor a passing thought in the time between leaving and coming back. 

Thor nods, then stands and crosses the room, grabbing a cigarette from the pack on the dusty soundboard. "It hurt me," he says in agreement. "Cause I thought- I had really thought - we had somethin'. I really thought we did." 

"We did," Loki says softly. 

"What happened, then?" Thor asks, anguished, as if he truly doesn't understand. 

Loki wants to say, 'You happened,' but that's simply cruel.

“I... I made some mistakes,” Loki says instead, “I didn’t do right by you.”

Thor lights up a stick and starts smoking, looking pensive as he opens a window. The man walks over to one of the old oak cabinets lined with glass, opening it up and digging out a notebook, flipping through it absently.

He’s waiting for Loki to say more, but Loki doesn’t know what it is exactly.

There’s silence for a few minutes too long, so long Loki starts to think that maybe he should start playing something again to keep the man’s thoughts from going to a dark place - and his own as well. Just as he’s about to start playing though, Thor blurts out a question.

“Did you love me?”

Loki pauses, honestly thinking over the question in his head, then with sincerity, he answers,

“I did,” after a beat, Loki adds, “I do.”

Thor looks at him steadily. "Okay," he says, and sits back down at the piano. 

\-------

Loki loves him. Loki loves him. Loki loves him.

It thrums in his head, a steady rhythm, and he plays it out on the piano, the relief and the terror and the other strange emotions he usually hides behind bravado and beer.

He's tired again, so tired, and his fingers slow on the keys as his energy lags. He feels Loki's hand on his shoulder and he looks up. "I'm no good anymore," Thor sighs. 

Maybe he was never good. Maybe he's always just been like this, pushing everybody away until he has no one left. No one but Loki.

Thor doesn’t know whether to be ecstatic or resentful, but all that matters is that Loki is here, and Loki loves him, and maybe that’s enough to get Thor through. 

\- - - - - -

It’s two more days til the Grammys, and Loki is still at home. Still with Thor instead of doing press tours or interviews or basking in the limelight of fame and recognition. He’s still here, picking up after Thor, cleaning up the house, cooking him meals, taking care of him when he gets too fucking drunk or takes one too many pills, lies with him in bed at night, wakes him up with soft touches and coaxes him out of the bed through music.

Thor soaks it all up - is starved for the easy affection Loki gives him, the way the man holds himself from commenting or scolding Thor when he does something dumb, and oh... fuck him, Thor is never going to love anyone again as much as he’s falling for the man.

He knows he's going to end up heartbroken and alone again, but maybe he can enjoy this while it lasts, as much as he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello! Lady here--to anyone who has read and followed this, we are so, so sorry for the long hiatus! We're back on track though (hopefully) and will start posting once a week or something. Or every two days. Or I might post all of it in one go now or tomorrow. LMAO STAY TUNED! Also, we love reading your comments! Feel free to drop us some and we'll gladly gush with you! We gush all the time. Like all day. Everyday. If you've got any constructive criticism we're open to hearing those too!


	8. Lovesick Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA "I've Grown So Used to You Somehow"
> 
> Thor and Loki stop and start again, push and pull, and the rope between them continues to fray.

"You'd better not pull a no show on me," Tony is saying that evening after they've had dinner and Loki has helped Thor to bed. It was an... okay day. Could have been worse. Could have been better. 

Thinking about the Grammys is the last thing Loki really wants to he doing. He's making progress with Thor, has got him playing his own songs again. Has even gotten him writing a little. He's still drinking and popping pills like crazy, but things are settling. A trip will certainly unsettle it. 

But Loki has obligations. To the label, to his fans. To himself. And to Thor, really. And is it so wrong to say he really wants to go? To soak up the adulation and applause? 

He's never felt so conflicted before, and it's eating at him. "I'll be there," he promises, hoping it's not one he's going to be breaking - because he's absolutely not going without Thor.

Loki decides its for everyone’s best interests that nobody knows he’s bringing Thor - Tony especially, because while Tony adores Loki, the man’s opinion of Thor is rather... low. Convincing Thor is going to be hard enough without anyone else trying to meddle.

Nobody knows he’s even here besides Hela, thinking he’d gone back home or something. Truth is, Loki doesn’t really consider anywhere to be ‘home’ anymore.

That is, until he found himself here.

“Hello, earth to my biggest fucking superstar, are you still there? No, let me guess, you have a friend over and they’re currently giving you some blow.”

Loki rolls his eyes at Tony’s words and tells the man to fuck off before hanging up. He’s at the piano again, unable to bring himself to sleep yet, and starts playing out a couple of songs. He doesn’t realize he’s got company until Thor’s voice startles him so badly he jumps,

“That’s nice.”

For a man so large, he sure can move around quietly, Loki thinks, a hand to his chest. “Did I wake you?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Oh.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“A while. When are you leaving?”

Loki looks down at the floor. "We're leaving tomorrow evening," he says, making the decision once and for all. When Thor balks at that, he puts up his hands placatingly. "It’s something I've got to do, but you're coming with me. I'm not leaving you here."

Thor's breath is starting to come a little faster now, his eyes darting around the room. "I - don't want to, you can go, it's fine, I'll be fine, and even if you don't come back, I-"

Loki crosses the space between them in two long strides. Grabbing Thor by the shoulders, he stills the man's anxious fidgeting. "Thor. I can't leave you here. I would - it's important to me that you're with me for this."

None of this would be happening if not for Thor, he keeps reminding himself. He doesn’t want to think about the other reason why he doesn’t want to leave the man by himself.

"I don't have anything to wear," is Thor's next argument. 

"We'll figure it out," Loki soothes, knowing the clothing situation is just an excuse.

“I don’t- I don’t want to go,” Thor says, his voice hitching a little.

“Please, Thor? For me.”

The man doesn’t say anything more, shrugging out of Loki’s arms and heading back up the stairs, presumably to his room. Loki sighs and rubs a hand down his face.

At least he didn’t head for the kitchen for some beer.

\- - - - - - 

The next day, Loki packs two suitcases, one for himself and one for Thor. By the time the man gets up and comes downstairs, Loki’s got everything settled and put away, had managed to get Verity to prepare something for Thor to wear when they get there - Thor none the wiser. 

“Good morning,” Thor greets, looking groggier than your usual person that just woke up.

He’s on the Xanax early today, apparently. 

“Nearly lunch, but good morning to you as well,” Loki says over the cup of coffee he’d made for himself, “hungry? Food’s almost done.”

Thor ambles over, plotting himself down on one of the kitchen chairs, rubbing his eyes, then his ears. He braces his elbows on the table and covers his ears, grimacing. Loki bites his lip, a bit guilty because all he can think about is how he’ll be able to get Thor to go with him.

"We're leaving for the airport in a couple hours," he says, deciding to just act like Thor is absolutely coming with him and there isn't even a discussion to be had about it. "We get the private jet." Or rather, Verity had chartered a private jet for them, because no way in hell is Loki going to try to get Thor on a commercial airline flight, even if they do sit in first class. 

Thor raises his head, still rubbing at his ear.

"What was that?" he asks, tilting his head towards Loki. 

"Private jet. In a couple hours," Loki repeats and Thor looks like he's been struck.

He stands abruptly, moving towards the fridge. Loki follows, knowing exactly what Thor is after. Sure enough, Thor grabs a bottle and is halfway through the beer on top of whatever Xanax he had taken - great. Good start to the day.

"Look," Thor says upon seeing Loki’s expression, "I know you think I've just been holed up here wallowing in my own self-pity, but I'm fine," he gives a chuckle that does nothing to confirm his words. And surely he knows Loki knows full well it's a dirty rotten lie. "So I know you think you're doing something good and charitable by wanting me there, but I'm not interested. Don't care. Couldn't care less. G’bye." He drains the rest of the beer and eyes the empty bottle before letting it clatter to the floor. 

Loki has one option, one thing that might get Thor on the jet where nothing else might. It feels a little like dirty pool, using this particular motivator, but desperate times and all that.

"There's beer on the plane," he bribes. 

Thor leans back against the counter and eyes him warily. The silence stretches for a long while.

"What kind?" Thor finally asks.

\- - - - - - 

Loki doesn’t know it, but Thor knocks back another pill in the bathroom before they head for the airport, blinking dry eyes as he stares at his reflection in the mirror.

Loki had managed to get him to trim his beard to something not resembling an overgrown hedge, and cut his hair a little bit too - brushed through the tangles and all. He almost looks... normal. Save for the deep bruises under his eyes. And the twitching. And the sallow look to his skin that’s also kind of, sort of jaundiced.

And... everything else.

He’s a mess. 

A mess.

Why would Loki want to drag him to the Grammys? Thor is a fucking embarrassment, a laughingstock, a dead weight - he’s going to drag Loki down so hard just by being associated with Thor. He’s going to-

“Thor? Come on, it’s time to go.”

Go?

No, no, no, no- Thor doesn’t want to go, he can’t. He can’t - if he keeps the bathroom door closed then Loki will be forced to leave him, will be forced to-

The door opens, Loki is standing there and he looks positively amazing even though Thor knows he’s not even dressed up nice and pretty yet. And oh, how had he forgotten to lock the door?

Loki reaches for his hand and gives a little squeeze. Thor feels like a petulant child as his eyes well up,

“I can drink on the plane?”

“Yes, if that’ll ease your nerves. I’ll be right by your side the entire time too. I promise.”

Thor nods, though it hardly makes him feel any better. He shoves two xanax bottles into his pocket on the way out the door. 

\------

Thor keeps rubbing at his ears. When the plane takes off, he tries to bite back a whimper of pain, and Loki feels a fresh wave of guilt for not checking to see if Thor's condition would be exacerbated by air travel. 

That's why he doesn't say anything when Thor pops a pill into his mouth, nor when Thor finishes his fifth beer half an hour into the flight. 

"There was a... a... baseball player," Thor is saying, pouring himself a whiskey now. "Wade Boggs. He once - he drank - forty - forty beers on a flight one time. I read about it. Or something." He glances up at Loki. "Think I could beat that."

"Please don't," Loki sighs. This might have been a big mistake.

Thor laughs instead of answering, then pops open the first two buttons of his shirt, looking a little frazzled.

Loki bites his bottom lip as the man fidgets and twists in his seat between taking shot after shot of whiskey. When the man halves the bottle Loki puts his foot down and takes it from him, frowning and sending Thor a glare when he reaches over for it.

“Enough. We haven’t even been in the air for two hours...” Loki says, but Thor is already scowling and turned away, chewing compulsively on his fingernails and bouncing his leg.

The man is coiled up tight and Loki almost feels sorry enough to let him have his drink back.

Almost.

\-------

Thor rubs at his ear again. He can barely hear anything Loki is saying over the ringing that only intensified once they were in the air, and that's hardly any fun. Plus, it hurts a little. And his chest hurts, too, tightening every time he thinks about WHY he's on an airplane, about why he's left his house at all. 

There are going to be so many people there. Loki is going to be expected to walk the red carpet, and Thor - Thor knows he's not red carpet material anymore. Maybe he can just wait in the car.

Maybe he can just stay at the hotel or wherever. But - and this is the only thing making him even want to try to be okay with this - then he would miss Loki getting recognized the way he deserves to be. 

He could watch it on TV. 

He wouldn't have to be there in person. 

He digs around in his pocket for one of the xanax bottles, trying to be as discrete as possible as he swallows down another one dry. 

He shifts in his seat uncomfortably. His leg won't stop moving, bouncing up and down much to the clear consternation of Loki.

Thor doesn’t like the man at the moment though, so he doesn’t feel bad for not stopping. In fact, if Thor is going to be really honest with himself, he’s kind of pissed.

Loki had promised he’d let Thor drink - and here Thor is, without anything to drink.

The only thing that’s making him even slightly comfortable, and making the silence between them a little more bearable are the doses of Xanax Thor has popped into his mouth since he woke up that morning. Thor has been more careful about his meds ever since LA and the rest that followed - he barely remembers it, but he knows he’d humiliated himself thoroughly.

Thor doesn’t want to get humiliated again.

Going to the Grammys means getting humiliated again.

If he goes, there’ll be no escaping the place, nowhere to hide - and people... people will see, and he’s going to have a panic attack, and then Loki will see too, and-

“Thor,” Loki is saying, or at least that’s what his lips seem to be saying. 

Thor can’t really hear much of anything but the roaring in his ears and the ringing and the deafening sound of his own racing heartbeat.

“Deep breaths.”

Ha.

Deep breaths.

Right.

"Don't suppose I could have a smoke right now," he chokes out, laughing wetly, trying his damnedest to get his goddamn emotions under control. He's Thor fucking Odinson. He used to do this sort of thing literally in his sleep.

Ah, fuck Loki for doing this to him. 

Fuck Loki for making him feel hopeful again.

Fuck Loki for dragging him out of his comfortable haven - on false pretenses, by the way, since suddenly the access to the alcohol is being restricted - for making him panic and almost try with the only advice he can give being DEEP BREATHS. 

Thor slams a fist against the bulkhead in frustration, bringing it back down again to cup his ear. It hurts so badly it’s moving into his jaw, the pressure almost unbearable. And the ringing. It's like a constant, high-volume cicada buzz right against his eardrums. 

"Thor, look at me," comes Loki's muffled voice. Thor sighs shakily and glances over briefly.

No.

He's mad at Loki, he's not going to play this game.

"Look at me, Thor." 

And then the choice is taken from him when Loki grips his chin between his thumb and forefinger and swivels it so Thor has no other option but to look at him.

"You've got this," Loki says. 

No, he doesn't.

\- - - - - 

Thor turns his face away again, shifting away from Loki and turning on his side as much as he can, curling into a fetal position with his hands cupped over both ears.

Loki can practically hear his own resolve breaking, wanting to just take the easy route as well and let Thor have his way, leave him, let him drink. Because this is not the behavior of a man who is even remotely well-adjusted. No, this is the behavior of someone who has gotten so dependent on drug and drink, who fell down into the deepest pits of depression and neglect, who is shaking with barely contained fear, anxiety, and pain - who can barely string together a completely thoughtful conversation not geared towards suggestions of self-destructive actions.

How did Loki ever think he could handle this himself? 

“I’m going to get you into treatment when we fly back home,” Loki tells him, despite knowing that the man won’t be listening anyways, “I’m going to find help for you, and I’ll stick by you no matter how hard it is.”

Thor just whimpers, pulling at his hair now and bumping his head against the walls of the plane somewhat.

Shit.

Maybe he can let Thor have another beer. For now.

Just one bottle at a time.

They’ll work on cutting back and getting help for his alcoholism after they get home.

Right now, they just need to get through the rest of the very long day and night ahead of them, whatever it takes.

\------

Loki loops his arm around Thor's waist to help him down the boarding ramp and into the waiting limo. He seems to have forgotten his anxiety - or numbed it out sufficiently, or is just pretending not to feel it - because he's got his own arm draped companionably over Loki's shoulders, and he's smiling and laughing as charming as hell when Loki introduces him to Verity, who is waiting for them with the car. 

Thor immediately pops open a bottle of champagne, using it to wash down another pill. Loki isn't sure how many he's taken today; he'd seen one before getting on the plane, and assumes there have probably been others. 

Still, Thor is pleasantly, if drunkenly, conversant with Verity, and Loki realizes just how deeply ingrained Thor's instinct to put that mask on is.

For one, it makes him grateful that Thor trusts him enough still to open up the more vulnerable parts of himself - for another, it makes Loki feel even more pissed at everyone who hasn’t bothered seeing past the surface, who had just gone along and pretended, who didn’t care enough to check on Thor all these months.

Loki, though, is mad at himself most of all, for taking the easy way out as well.

“Is his suit ready?” Loki asks Verity then, interjecting halfway between Thor’s animated recounting of a drunken night out with his friends.

Thor isn’t pleased with that, huffing and muttering under his breath about rudeness. Loki knows, though, that Thor is mostly shielding himself again from having to join any and all conversation that includes him attending the Grammys.

“I have. But uh... are you sure he’s... well?”

Loki frowns at her, scolding her in Thor’s defense, “He’s right here, Verity. Don’t do that. And yes, Thor will be alright. Right? You’ve got this?”

Thor lets out a wet laugh, rubbing his ears again and pretending not to hear. Loki sighs,

“Just... get it ready. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Verity's expression suggests her doubt, but she drops the subject, letting Thor launch back into his story as if he had never been interrupted.

\------

Verity Willis is a professional personal assistant. It's her thing, it's what she does. She's worked with a large handful of celebrities by now, but her favorite is Loki. He's crazy talented, and he's not too demanding, and doesn't ask her to do anything weird or have insanely high standards. It's a pretty low stress job, compared to some of her previous clients. 

But now she's really, really starting to rethink her stance, because Thor Odinson is definitely in no shape to be out in public, let alone at a major awards show. Oh, he's acting jovially enough, but Verity is very, very good at seeing through celebrities' public personas. 

And Thor is a hot mess. Like, even more of a hot mess than the drunk country singer he's currently playing at being. She has a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, but it's very obvious that Loki won't hear of anything negative being said. 

The limo ride to the hotel by the venue isn't long, but Thor manages to put away an entire bottle of champagne in that time. Verity gets them checked in while Loki drags Thor out of the car, then they finally go up to the room to get ready for the show. 

She glances at her watch, realizing they only have a few hours to get ready and get there for the first of the red carpet events, which Loki, as one of the most heavily nominated artists this year, will be expected to attend. It's probably in his contract, even. Verity just doesn't know where that leaves Thor.

Is she going to have to babysit? She will, of course, and she knows it will be fine if she has to, but she's a little worried that Loki has not thought this through all the way.

Thor is clearly in pain.

“Are you sure you’re alright in there?” Verity asks for the umpteenth time after Thor had disappeared into the bathroom, saying he needed to take a huge shit.

Verity doesn’t believe that one a single bit.

She’s been listening to him dry-heave for the better part of twenty minutes.

“Out n’a sec!” comes the man’s voice, slurry and rough, a pinched quality to it and a breathlessness that tells Verity more than she needs to know about how long the man will actually be in there.

The door is yanked open just as Verity is about to knock again, and Thor leans against the frame with a forced smile on his face. There’s a bit of sweat on his brow and dotting the top of the man’s lips, as well as his neck. His hands are shaking slightly.

“Are you sure you’re okay? I can get you some tea or whatever. Sweets?” Verity suggests, peering up at the taller man.

Thor whips out a pill bottle and shakes it with his pained smile morphing into a toothy grin, “M’good, jus’ don’t tell Loki- s’his night. His night. Shouldn’t make ‘im worry.”

Loki will be worried either way, Verity knows this, but nods her head anyways. Loki had needed to meet up first with Stark and some other people, so she’d been left to prepare Thor and get him nice and presentable enough to be at the event itself, but Verity is... having serious doubts now about following through with Loki’s request. Sometimes, Verity has to wonder that perhaps what musical brilliance Loki has is what makes him lack for common sense and empathy.

Still. He’s her boss.

And Thor... well, he can’t be left to his own devices, and Verity needs to be there at the event too - in case Loki needed something.

So instead of the ‘let’s just stay here and watch on the TV’, Verity says,

“Let’s get you ready.”

\------

It takes far too long because Thor clearly has exactly zero interest in cooperating with her at any point in the process, but eventually she's got Thor into his suit, his hair pulled out of his face and his beard neatly groomed. He still looks entirely fucked up, but at least he seems like he's willing to make an attempt at being in a good mood for Loki's sake.

"Le's do a couple shoss b'fore we go," he suggests to her, grabbing her wrist with a surprising amount of gentleness from someone his size and intoxication level. "Please?" he peers at her over the rims of his sunglasses. 

Verity sighs, realizing there's no possible way this is going to end well. "One shot," she stresses, pouring it out herself. "Then we have to go meet Loki." 

Thor's expression tightens again and he rubs at his ear. Verity feels a pang of sympathy; none of this is remotely fair to Thor and nobody seems too concerned about that, not even Loki.

Verity picks up a matching hat and places it on top of Thor’s head after he knocks his shot back, then gives him a tight lipped smile. Thor mirrors the expression and reaches into his suit pocket to take out the pill bottle again, but before he can take any though, Verity stops him.

“You already had some, remember? Come on, let’s go meet Loki.”

Verity turns and makes her way to the door.

She hears the rattling of the pills in the bottle before she hears Thor follow.

\- - - - - - -

Bad idea.

Bad, bad, bad idea.

Horrible, really, and Thor wonders why he’s even here in the first place. Certainly not on his own whim, Thor would never... never just pop up here for no good reason. Certainly not because he’s got any awards this season either - this makes him chuckle a little as the Xanax takes effect and numbs him enough not to feel panicky as he follows Verity down the hall to the elevator.

Maybe he can manage this after all though. He’s got more pills in his pocket if he ever needs the calm they offer, and there’s booze back in the hotel room for when this is over.

Mm. Yeah, he can handle this.

But...

But - the elevator doors are opening and they spill him out into a lobby filled with people milling about, and Thor just wants to press the button to close the door and the button to take them back up to which floor they’re in. He can’t even remember.

“Thor?” He hears past the ringing and the pounding in his ears, and he turns towards Verity. She loops her arm around his own, giving his bicep a squeeze. “Come on, you’ll be okay.”

No. 

No he won’t be.

\------

There's more champagne in the limo. Who's idea was it to put more champagne in the limo? Loki winces as Thor all but tumbles out, Verity grabbing at him to keep him steady. Thor has the champagne bottle in his hand as he lopes over to Loki, who has been giving an interview for some lady with the E! Network. 

"This guy!" Thor crows, wrapping his arm around Loki's shoulders and pulling him close to kiss the side of his head. "I love this guy! E'rybody loves this guy!"

Loki tries to smile graciously as Thor continues extolling Loki's virtues until the reporter excuses herself to go interview Lady Gaga, who manages not to have anyone hanging all over her. 

"Hey! I made it!" Thor says, and anyone who didnt know him - which is to say everyone besides Loki - would just see an overly exuberant, slightly drunk, country star.

What Loki sees is a terrified little boy, drugged and drunk to the gills, struggling to even get one foot in front of the other.

Still, he can’t say that he isn’t glad that Thor came all the way here, is facing all of these things he’s afraid of and running from, to be with Loki in the pinnacle of his career. Granted, maybe he wouldn’t have come without all the bribes.

“Come on, lets-“

“Hela!” Thor says, voice booming, and Loki turns to find the man’s said half-sister following after another singer that Loki’s heard of in passing.

Thor ambles over to his sister, wrapping her in a tight embrace. She returns it, saying something into his ear before Loki can come near enough to catch what it is. The man doesn’t seem any worse off when he pulls away though, so Loki assumes if wasn’t anything serious.

Thor seems happy, even - despite the undercurrent of... well, everything else. Hela regards both of them fully, a rare soft look on her face, then she turns to Loki and congratulates him. Loki can only smile and thank her as more people start noticing their interactions - making Thor start to fidget more as his composure slips.

One particular reporter comes up, and Loki feels his hackles rise when the man eyes them first before firing away with his stupid questions - not even directing them at either Loki or Hela, but at Thor, who looks like he’s about to bolt.

"I, uh, um, I'm jus' here t'support m'frien' Loki," Thor stammers, gripping the champagne bottle a little tighter. "Y'shoul', uh, talk t'him, he's, y'know, superstar an' all..." He's starting to ramble, and Loki gives the reporter a dirty look as he pulls Thor away. 

"Asshole," Loki mutters under his breath. "Come on, let's go find our seats." 

Thor finishes off the bottle and hands it to Verity, letting Loki lead him into the theater.

\------

Thor fidgets in his seat, trying not to. It's hard. There are too many people here. It's too hard to concentrate. He can hear the presenters just fine, but the ringing in his ears is competing for volume. 

And everyone is looking at him. He knows they are. He can tell. Can sense it on the back of his neck. "I gotta go to th' bathroom," he mutters, partially because it's true and partially because he needs to get out of this crowd.

Loki doesn’t seem to hear him, busy as he is squabbling with Stark on his left. Thor turns to Verity then and holds her arm, shaking it a little to get her attention. She turns to him and raises an eyebrow, as though a mother inquiring after her child, and like a child indeed, Thor mutters,

“I gotta go.”

“Go?”

“T’bathroom. I gotta go to th’ bath. Please. M’gonna piss myself.”

Verity gets up then and let’s him pass, and Thor doesn’t wait up for her as she tells Loki where they’re going. Thor doesn’t make it that far, stumbling blindly as he is, and Verity is at his side leading him on in the span of seconds. If he didn’t know for sure they were staring then, they definitely are staring now.

Thor hates it.

They get to the bathroom without causing more of a scene than Thor had expected, and Thor is grateful that Verity doesn’t insist on following him inside. He pulls out the pill bottle and shakes two into his hands, knocks them back, then drinks from the tap - then decides that he needs a couple more to get through tonight and repeats it with two more.

Thor wets and washes his face, gripping the marble sink so tight he’s afraid it might crack, then shakes his head in the hopes of getting the ringing in his ears to stop.

Thor wants to break down right then and there - maybe lock himself in one of the stalls and wait until it’s all over.

But...

But he needs to try.

For Loki. He’s got to try for Loki.

He can’t embarrass the man in front of everyone - can’t let him down. Thor knows how it feels to be let down, after all.

He can’t do that to Loki.

He's glad Verity is waiting for him outside the door; everything is getting awfully blurry and he doesn't really remember where they're sitting.

"S'there an'thin' t'drink in here?" he asks her. If he can just snag a drink to bring back to their seats, he thinks he can get through the rest of the night. 

Verity makes a face. He thinks she makes a face. "I don't think so," she replies. "But if you can make it to the after party..."

After party? Nobody said anything about an after party. Shit, shit, no, he thought he was done after Loki got his awards, they could be done, they could go home. "Or not," Verity says quickly. "Come on, I think Loki's first category is going to be announced soon."

Thor is nearly legless by the time they're back at their seats, the fast-acting benzos in his system doing a one-two punch on his brain, already swimming in a sea of alcohol. 

But he's been more fucked up than this, he tells himself, giving Loki's hand a squeeze. He barely feels their skin touching. Finally, finally. Finally he feels numb. Finally he cares about nothing but the man beside him. 

Loki is about to win five Grammys. That's Thor's Loki.

Thor leans over and nuzzles the man’s cheek - or at least he thinks he does. He can’t be too sure. Loki’s got his hand on the back of Thor’s head though, he’s sure about that, and their faces are so close together Thor can kiss him if he just tilts his head a little bit.

“Are you alright?” Loki is asking, and Thor just nods, then gives in to his head and presses a kiss to the corner of the man’s lips,

“M’good, r’lly good. Love you. Love y’loads,” Thor mumbles, pressing more sloppy kisses to Loki’s cheek and neck.

Yes, this is all that matters.

\- - - - - -

Loki can’t help the nerves he feels, from his little spat with Tony, to the anticipation of the events, to his worry for Thor - the anxiousness he feels is almost all encompassing, completely eclipsing any excitement he might have felt in the hours leading to this moment.

And Thor is kissing him and telling Loki he loves him.

It would have been perfect, if not for the fact that Thor is even more fucked up now than he was before he left for the fucking bathroom.

"How many did you take?" he asks softly, careful to keep his tone casual, giving Thor a kiss on the cheek as he pushes his groping hands away. It has to be the pills, there's no way he could have found enough liquor in the time they were gone to get him to this state. 

Thor smiles at him, or rather, one corner of his mouth quirks upward as his eyelids flutter. "Jus' a couple, t'relaz. M'fine, jus' enjoy yerself." He gives Loki an extremely clumsy pat on the hand.

On Loki's other side, Tony seems to have gotten over their spat in favor of pointing at Thor. "What's his problem?" he asks. 

Loki sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Nothing, dont worry about it," he brushes off. The fewer people involved in this, the better. With any luck, Thor will just sit in his seat quietly now that he's fully sedated.

Loki shifts so that he’s mostly blocking Tony’s view of Thor. He doubts it’s as subtle as he believes it to be, but it can’t be helped. At least it gets Tony off of Thor’s back.

Thor’s head lolls forward, threatening to topple him completely over and off of his seat. Loki props him up, rubbing at the front of the man’s chest for a couple of seconds,

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. Lean back, baby - lean back, that’s it there you go,” Loki coaxes, feeling a horrible pit open inside of him.

When he feels Tony grab his arm, he almost snaps at the other man, not even thinking about the announcements anymore with his preoccupation with Thor, then Loki hears it.

“And the winner is... how great. Loki!”

Loki’s head snaps up, because he hadn’t been paying attention at all, and now the crowd has erupted and everyone is on their feet, and Loki is swept up as well in hugs and congratulations and everything.

Loki basks in it, just for a second.

\- - - - - - -

Thor looks up at the ruckus, blinking dumbly at the people standing up and being all noisy. More so than the near-constant noise in his ears. But he should stand too, right? Since everyone is doing it?

And where’s Loki? Thor could swear he was just here a second ago.

Everything is too bright and loud and confusing.

He claps his hands together because everyone else is, but he's also looking around for Loki. Loki, where is - oh! He's up on the stage! He's holding a fucking gold statue.

"Thas' my Loki!" Thor shouts as it sinks in what's happening. There's a tittering from the audience and Loki chuckles into the microphone.

"Wow, thank you all so much for this. I never in a million years thought I would be standing up here. I want to thank my manager and producer, Tony Stark, my amazing assistant Verity Willis, and..."

And? Who else could there possibly be? Thor sways on his feet. Oh, everyone else is sitting again. 

"And Thor Odinson, who gave me a chance and who really deserves half the credit for this album, honestly."

Loki is talking about him. He should go talk to Loki.

Right?

Thor moves out of his seat and almost falls face first if not for Verity propping him up, and even then he almost drags her down to the floor too. There’s a buzz of conversation going on around, and a couple of people near the aisles are up on their feet, hands outstretched towards him.

Thor bristles at that, feels a bit of the panic break through the haze of the drugs, but then he manages to put one foot in front of the other, Verity at his side hissing something unintelligible at him.

Thor can only grin at Loki up on the stage, pride swelling inside of him.

Then... then Thor feels his knee buckle and his legs go out from underneath him, and he’s sitting at the steps, or the stage - or maybe somewhere?

His fans must be wondering why he stopped the concert.

\------

Loki stares in mute horror as Thor falls heavily onto the stairs up to the stage, head tilted back, laughing. Fuck, God fucking damn it. He hands the statuette to the presenter and walks over to where Thor is, crouching down beside him.

"You don't need to be up here," he says softly, putting a hand on Thor's shoulder. "Verity's gonna take you back to our seats. I'll be there in just a minute." 

Thor slaps a hand into Loki's shoulder. "S'okay, s'all, s'all good," he slurs, and it's almost completely unintelligible. His eyes are rolling back into his head even as he tries to use Loki to leverage himself to his feet. 

Loki manages to get himself under Thor's shoulder to help him a bit, Verity getting onto his other side. "Thor, go sit back down, I'll be right there," Loki repeats, the anxious nausea roiling in his gut.

This was supposed to be the greatest night of his life.

Loki tries to trample down on the embarrassment he feels bubbling just right under the surface, but then there’s an exclamation of disgust from the people nearest to them. Loki frowns then looks down and immediately, he wants the floor to swallow him up whole.

Or maybe swallow Thor up whole - maybe swallow Thor up whole twenty minutes ago.

Loki can’t even bring himself to feel bad at the thought.

\- - - - - -

Thor doesn’t know what’s happening.

First, he was at home - then Loki showed up, and then they were fine, then they were on an airplane then a limo and at a hotel - then they were in a limo again and then here and where even is HERE? 

Thor should know, because he knows it’s important - because Loki was on a stage and receiving... oh.

Oh!

Of course - the Grammys. 

The thought of his Loki winning makes Thor feel all warm inside. All warm. His crotch feels warmest - and parts of his leg and calves too.

Warm is good. Warm is safe. He leans against Loki and suggests celebrating Loki's win, but Loki is bright red and Thor can feel things starting to slip. 

\--------

Loki has never felt more humiliated in his entire life, has never been more angry. But it wars with his concern, because by the time they've gotten Thor dragged offstage - even Hela and Tony had come back with them to help - Thor is limp and drooling and completely incoherent. 

Verity wants to call an ambulance, but Loki is loathe to do it. This is something he's dealt with before. And he's pissed. He's so, so pissed. This was supposed to be his night. This was supposed to be - he had thought Thor was doing well enough. Had thought... 

He doesn't know what he thought. He just had not expected this.

They drag him into a private changing room with some showers and stick him inside one, turning the water on. Hela is the one who steps inside the stall to prop Thor up and try to keep him steady, and Loki is glad for it.

Loki doesn’t think he can keep himself from yelling at the man right now.

Tony’s expression screams ‘I told you so’, and while Loki doesn’t want to admit it, he was right about Thor being here being a mistake. Verity looks apologetic, as if she’s the one responsible for it.

Loki hates it so much.

He’s still got four more categories to get through, and by GOD how is he supposed to face every one of those artists that just witnessed the whole debacle?

Never mind the artists, how is Loki supposed to face the entire fucking industry?

This is a nightmare and he's a little afraid he's never going to wake up.

"Get back out there," Hela commands, crouching next to her brother and slapping his face much more lightly than Loki would have. "I'll take care of this asshole until you're done." 

Loki bites his lip. How could he possibly -? But then Tony has him by the arm and is dragging him back to their seats. It's all Loki can do to keep from crying.

\------

Thor doesn't even seem to realize she's here. Small miracles, Hela supposes, but it's horribly reminiscent of the last days of their father, holed up in his house with newspapers over the windows and water on his brain. He hadn't known either of them, in the end. 

Maybe that was for the better. Maybe it's good Dad isn't around to see what he turned his son into. Hela still remembers watching Odin badger Thor into drinking with him at the age of twelve - because Hela refused. She always refused. She wouldn't become like the old man.

But Thor - Thor worshipped the ground Odin walked on, even when Odin was kicking him in the teeth - both literally and metaphorically. It was Dad who showed Thor that booze was the only way to solve problems, Dad who told Thor fame and love came hand in hand and if he didn't have success he would never be loved. It was Dad who pushed and pushed and never once seemed to realize what Thor had turned into.

And by the time Odin was gone and Hela had taken over as Thor's manager, the damage had been done. And Hela was still too raw over everything to do anything to help. Well, she had tried. She had gotten albums and awards and brilliance out of him at times. 

Thor spasms and pukes down the front of his suit, head lolling to the side, moaning softly. And since no one else is around, Hela allows herself just for a moment, to weep.

\- - - - -

When the event is over, Thor still hasn’t come to in the sense that he’s even remotely aware of whatever is happening around him. Sure, he’s groggily pulled his head up and muttered unintelligible things to Hela, but it’s pretty clear that the lights aren’t on at all.

She’d managed to compose herself enough that she doesn’t look like a puffy-eyed demoness, but that doesn’t mean she’s prepared at all to deal with Loki when the man storms inside, stone-faced with his fists clenched.

Just perfect really.

“Don’t,” is all Hela says, blocking the man’s view of Thor still in the corner of the shower stall, still sopping wet, still swimming in drugs up to his eyeballs.

“Don’t what?”

“Whatever you’re about to do or say, just don’t. He’s not even going to remember any of it - so be the bigger man and don’t.”

Loki grits his teeth he stares her down, “Look at him! He’s not- he couldn’t even- fuck. You wouldn’t understand, so just let me fucking-“

“You think I don’t know how you’re feeling right now? You think I don’t know how much you want to just shake him or punch him or rip him a new one? Newsflash - he’s my brother. I know better than anyone, and I’m telling you right now. JUST. DON’T.”

Loki starts pacing just as Thor moans again, and Hela turns to look at her brother, blinking hazy eyes at her and Loki,

“S’the par’y o’er?”

"You never even made it to the party," Loki snaps, and Hela jerks her head to glare at him. She knows how angry he is, fuck, she is too. But she also knows it's a waste of breath right now. 

Thor looks crestfallen. "S’gonna be... gonna be... we..." He leans his head back against the shower wall and gives a full-body shudder. 

"I still think we should call an ambulance," the girl following Loki around now - Verity, Hela thinks - says, wringing her hands. 

Thor seems to catch that because he shakes his head and whimpers.

“Nnnno,” Thor whines, trying to twist away, “nnno’spitals. Nosy doc’ers. Stuh- stupid fuggers.”

“No hospitals. He just needs a few more minutes,” Hela tells them, brushing the hair back from her brother’s forehead and cheeks, “do either of you happen to have extra clothes?”

Loki shakes his head, but Verity offers to send a message to their chauffeur to bring some when he comes to pick them up. 

Hela is grateful that they didn’t just leave her with Thor to pick up the pieces again. She’s spent her entire life looking after Thor, watching him reach heights unimaginable in is career, then self-destruct, then repeat the process again. She can’t go back to that cycle, even if the one peaking now is Loki. 

Hela worries that with their situation, Thor will just continue to self-destruct until he dies.

"Hang in there, little brother," she murmurs as he nuzzles against her, oblivious to the fact he's getting vomit all over her beautiful Vera Wang evening gown. "It'll be okay." 

She's pretty sure she's lying.

\-------

By the time Happy shows up with a change of clothes and the limo that's had all the liquor removed from it, Thor is staring at his hands. 

They're blurry. Everything is. And he feels sick. Really sick. Did he get sick? He doesn't even know where he is. At all. Hela is here, and he thinks that dark blur is Loki, but the incessant ringing is making it hard to keep track of things.

That, and everything else. "Don' f-fffeeel goo'," he whines to Hela. Hela will make it better. She always makes it better.

Except she shouldn't be here because Thor hurt her. Thor hurts everybody he loves. Everybody. They'd all be so much better off without him. 

"I know you don't," Hela replies softly. "Its okay. Let's get you changed."

Changed? Why- oh. His pants are wet. Whoops. Fuck.

Thor tries to get his feet under him with Hela’s help, and somehow they manage to prop him up. Hela’s dress doesn’t ripple and wave like Thor expects it to, and finds that it’s also wet when he touches the fabric. He can’t tell what it’s supposed to look like, but he knows it would’ve been pretty and would’ve suited her well.

“S’pretty,” Thor says, surprising himself as he does, looking up to meet his sister’s eyes.

“Thanks, now let's get you out of these.”

She busies herself with the buttons on his suit, and why is he wearing a suit again? Thor hates suites - so uppity and presumptuous - so formal... reminds him of times long past and that time when he wore an all black suit for dad’s... well.

When he’s out of his suit, Thor looks up to find Loki and Stark staring at him. Both of them are dressed to the nines as well.

Why are they all here again?

Slowly, the reason comes back to him though. Hela’s dress. His suit. Loki and Stark. Verity. A limo.

Oh.

Thor can only turn his head away enough so he doesn’t throw up all over his sister.

\-------

Tony winces as Thor empties more of his stomach onto the floor of the shower and turns away, pulling out his phone. This has gone on for far too long, and sure, Thor fucked him over big time, but Tony knows he's got to take care of Loki. 5-time Grammy winner Loki. And taking care of Loki means also taking care of Thor, apparently.

He takes a few steps away from the group as he dials up the rehab center he's used for various clients - and himself - before. Enough money offered opens up a detox bed that very night. Fucking good. 

It's about time somebody did something. 

\-------

It takes both Hela and Loki to wrestle Thor into his clothes - sweatpants and a t-shirt and flip flop sandals- and by the time they're done, Thor is shaking and sobbing and brokenly apologizing. Loki is fairly certain he has no idea what he's apologizing for. 

"Hey," Tony says, putting a hand on Loki's shoulder, "Happy will take him to Passages tonight. It's a good place, he'll be able to get some help."

Loki stares at the man in awe. They'd fought about Thor even coming here and while Loki wishes now he had listened to Stark, now he's just grateful the man is here.

He turns to Hela, who’s also changed from her ruined attire to some leggings and a slim top and is shushing Thor as he mumbles more hollow apologies against her shoulder,

“Will he be alright if we leave him there?” Loki asks, because he can’t take the man back to their hotel, can’t imagine taking him home afterwards too - he can’t imagine forgiving Thor for this. Not now, while it’s so raw. Not anytime soon.

“How long did you pay for?” Hela asks, though the question is not directed at Loki.

“As long as he needs to stay there to get better.”

Hela looks up at that, and so does Loki, but Stark doesn’t even look all that interested. The man just lifts both hands up and tells Hela he’s doing it for Loki. For all his pride and irritating cockiness, Loki can’t help but feel relieved that this is something Tony does now. At least he’s got someone in his corner - looking after him - because honestly, he’s so fucking tired. Taking care of Thor for all that time before tonight, it reminded him just why he’d cut the man off in the first place.

And this... this is for the best. It's not like he’s going to give up or walk away from Thor again. 

Loki just needs time.

Loki just needs to take care of himself again first.

It’s not selfish, but the way Hela glares at him, and the way Thor renews his sobbing - Loki can’t help but feel like HE’S the asshole tonight.

Maybe he is, for bringing Thor here.

\--------

Thor doesn't understand what's happening. One minute, he was standing in a shower stall in a place he didn't recognize, and the next Hela is gripping him by the elbow and helping him walk into another building he doesn't recognize. There's somebody in nurse's scrubs talking to him, but he's not sure he can reply. He wants a cigarette, but Hela took his pack before they got out of the limo.

Fuck.

Fuck her.

Fuck everybody. 

"Don' wan' be... don' - be here..." he manages to get out, struggling to keep his eyes open. He's tired. He's so, so tired, and he doesn't know what to do about it. Dad would have given him some cocaine. He doesn't think Hela would have any, and he doesnt think she would give it to him even if she did. He asks anyway. 

"Shh, no, you don't do that anymore," Hela says, then says, "He's really out of it. I'm his sister, I can answer any questions."

He wants to sit down, so he does, on the floor. Holding his head in his hands, he lets himself drift.

\---------

"You're doing the right thing," Tony assures Loki on the ride back to the hotel. Loki is staring at the five golden statuettes seated in a row in the spot Thor was supposed to have occupied. "He's gotta get his own shit together before you can go back to him. You gotta focus on what's next."

Loki doesn't know what's next. He had thought he would take some time off after tonight, head back to Nashville and work through Thor's issues. But tonight made it clear that Thor is beyond his help. 

And he's angry. He's so, so, so angry.

“I want to have a talk with Hela,” Loki manages to get out, voice flat and devoid of the rage roiling inside of him.

It’s for himself, for being dumb enough to believe he could clean Thor up enough to share the success with him, for being naive enough to try. It’s for Tony who didn’t do this for Thor when the man was still under his care, still worked for his label. It’s for Hela, who always makes sure Thor wants for nothing, who also didn’t do shit for her brother to get him to stop the path he took, who - even tonight after he’d hit her the last time they met - still picks up after him like some... like some fucking... Loki doesn’t even know how to describe it but he hates it, because she’s what he would be if he doesn’t stick up for himself now.

But mostly, mostly the anger is for Thor, despite Loki knowing he’s sick, fucked up enough in the head that he isn’t accountable for his actions. Loki can’t help it.

“Okay, but why?” Tony asks, phone whipped out and thumbs dancing over the screen,

“I’m pissed at Thor.”

“I get that. So why the need to talk to his sister?”

Loki doesn’t know either, “Closure? I don’t fucking know. I just want to. I can’t... I don’t want to talk to Thor. She’s the next best thing.”

"Why don't you just not talk to either of them for a while?" Tony suggests, not looking up from his phone. "Give yourself some time to cool down. Focus on your own shit."

Of course, Tony is mostly concerned with getting him back into the recording studio. Well, he's definitely got some material to work with now. Except…

"I need this," he insists. "I need... I need to know how this happened."

He knows very little about Thor's private life prior to his own involvement in it; he knows about as much as Thor and Hela have told him, which is not a whole lot. 

"This has been happening for years now, Lokes," Tony informs him, setting his phone aside. "You gotta let it go for a while."

Let it go? Let it GO?

"Are you shitting me?" Loki demands. "Where the fuck were you all that time, anyway?"

Tony should have done this sooner. Tony should have done a lot of things sooner. Hela should have - everyone should have. Loki feels his chest tighten and his eyes burn with unshed tears. 

Tony whips off his tinted glasses. "Don't start with me, superstar," he warns. "I gave my left nut to help that guy, and he screwed me over. I'm only helping him now because of you. As far as I'm concerned, Thor Odinson can go fuck himself."

“Fuck you,” Loki spits, looking out the heavily tinted windows, effectively having the last word to this particular argument - if it can even be called that.

It’s not that Loki blames everyone for Thor being the way he is - it’s just... he does. And it’s exhausting, always being at odds with the people in his life. Hell, the only break he’s ever gotten was Verity, and now she too, insists that Loki should spend some time away from Thor again. 

Everyone thinks it.

It’s sound advice, and it would definitely put an end to a lot of frustrations and headaches, but...

But. 

There’s still the fact that none of this would have happened if not for the other man. Loki would still be in a dead-end job that he hated, singing for a crowd of drunkards and perverts and the occasional gentleman who wanted to have a good time - he’d still be Loki who kept his songs in his songbook and his music in his head or for his own ears only.

There’s also the fact that Loki is probably - no, definitely - in too deep because he loves the man.

Loki sighs, swallowing his pride.

“Can I please talk to her?”

Tony is staring at him, but Loki refuses to meet his eyes, keeping his gaze locked on the neon lights outside.

“Fine. Tomorrow, but then you drop this and you focus on yourself.”

"Fine," Loki snaps back.

It's fine. It's all fine. 

\----------

Hela stays just long enough to make sure Thor isn't going to punch anybody - not that he's coordinated enough to land a hit on anybody, of course. She's done this so many times now, watched her brother appear to hit rock bottom only to find out he's got a shovel and is more than willing to dig. 

Well, he's digging his own grave. 

She wants to just say fuck it and let him, like she had with Odin, but Thor is the only family she has left. And when he's not being a complete fuckface, he's a good person. He's got a big heart, which is why he hurts so much, and Dad never taught him any better how to handle it. Hela had to spend years and years in therapy to figure it out. But now... now the stakes are different.

Now Thor has guaranteed he will never be taken seriously in the music industry again. She knows that will break his heart all over again when he realizes what he's done, and she doesn't really have the energy or the ability to walk him through the fallout. 

Rehab is the best place for him, really.

So she leaves him there, and goes back to the hotel, and kicks off her high heeled shoes and falls asleep to the memory of her little brother sobbing against her shoulder.

\-------

The phone rings the next morning and Hela wakes groggy. "What?" she answers, hoping to God it's not Thor begging her to come get him. 

"Hela? It's Loki. Can we talk?"

She isn’t sure why he wants to, and isn’t entirely sure why she agrees, but she does.

\- - - - - - 

Loki looks up as soon as Hela slides into the chair across him, intentionally sitting at a table that’s secluded enough from other patrons getting their morning fix. It’s both to keep people from coming up to them (him, mostly), and to not draw attention if their chat... devolves.

“Thanks for meeting me,” Loki offers when they’ve both ordered some breakfast staples. “I’m surprised you even agreed.”

“Me too,” Hela says, then leans forward, elbows on the table and chin resting on her bridged fingers, “so. What is this about?”

“What else?” Loki counters, rubbing at his forehead. It’s too early to talk about anything other than breakfast, but Tony has booked him a flight to wherever the fuck he’s going exactly after lunch. And really, Loki isn’t one to beat around the bush anyways, “Stark told me this has been going on for a long time. How long?”

Hela is saved from answering by a waitress bringing them their coffee, then she takes her time sipping at it first before she does. Loki thinks she might be doing it on purpose.

“The drinking? Since he was twelve. The drugs, I have no timeframe - I just know daddy started giving him coke at one point or another.”

Loki blinks in surprise. Unless Thor was much better at hiding things than he seemed, he'd never seen the man do coke. "But not anymore, right?"

Hela snorts. "Who the fuck knows. Probably not, it was really only ever when Thor was too messed up to perform or whatever. Got his feet under him, all of that nonsense. He kicked it after dad died. The Xanax started with Tony." She looks down into her coffee as if it holds any answers. "I really don't know what else to tell you. I've been putting up with this shit my whole life."

Loki can't help but feel a little bad for the woman sitting in front of him. She looks exhausted, traces of last night's makeup still on her face.

"Has he ever been to rehab before?" he asks. 

She snorts. 

"Yeah, you've tried getting Thor to do something he doesn't want to do. Only reason he went last night is he had no clue what was happening. Probably still doesn't. Idiot is probably trying to check out like it's a goddamn hotel." Her tone is both worried and deeply, deeply bitter. "I love my brother more dearly than anyone, but you've seen how he is."

Yes, Loki has certainly seen it, more than once, and each time it just gets worse and worse. He's truly afraid that one day Thor won't have anyone there at all. And oh, but does he love him. 

"I just want him to be okay," he says, sounding very small even to his own ears. 

"Then you need to let him clean up his own mess this time," Hela advises, sipping her coffee. "That's been the problem. I'll admit, it's easier to let him do what he wants than argue with him. And I haven't done him any favors because of that. This time, we all need to take a step back."

When Loki doesn’t say anything, she continues,

“You were right about what you said to me that night when we wrapped up his tour. You remember that, right?”

Loki honestly can’t. It was so long ago, and the only thing Loki can really remember is how shit-faced Thor was then too, and how amazing the rush of performing to that huge audience was. Loki can’t even remember that he’d talked to anyone else.

“You told me the same thing I’m telling you. Let him clean his own shit up.”

Loki laughs, but it isn’t a happy sound. The smirk on Hela’s face isn’t either. It’s as fake as the way Thor pretended everything was fine and that it was all just fun, fun, fun.

Their reality now is so far removed from anything resembling fun.

He looks down at his own cup of coffee, black with no sugar, steam still billowing up in soft tendrils, the aroma of it calming as Loki gets a whiff. If only life were as easy as blowing on a cup of coffee to reap the rush it gives.

“So we leave him there?”

“We leave him there.”

Loki taps his fingers on the table, “For how long?”

Hela doesn’t answer, taking a sip from her coffee again and lifting a shoulder in a shrug.

Loki doesn’t much like the non-committal answer. It may as well mean forever.

\----------


	9. I'm So Tired of It All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA "Too Many Times, I've Watched My Castles Fall"
> 
> Thor reaches a breaking point, though it's not like nobody hadn't seen it coming from a mile away.

Thor hates rehab. Hates it with the burning passion of a thousand suns. Or he would, if he were able to feel anything at all. After the initial detox - agony, really - he's just felt... numb. Well, numb and humiliated. How could he not be, after what he now knows landed him here? No wonder Loki hasn't come to see him, or even called or written. No wonder Hela has been practicing similar radio silence. No wonder.

He hates it. It's a nice place, obviously Stark's doing, and Thor wishes he could feel bitter or angry or anything at all towards the man. He doesn't. He feels nothing. Trying to write is a nightmare, because without the feeling, there's no art. Without the booze, there's no art. Without Loki... 

He wants to hate everything. It burns inside of him like a smoldering fire but it's trapped. Trapped behind Thor's own inability to parse out his feelings, his unwillingness to "give himself over" to the process of recovery. He doesn't want this. He just doesn't want everyone to be angry with him. 

He misses Loki.

Shit, he misses his friends.

He misses his mom.

He even misses Hela. 

"Thor? You with us?" Dr. Banner's gentle voice rouses him from his wallowing. Thor looks up to see everyone looking at him. For someone who has spent so much time on stage, Thor really doesn't like being the center of attention off of it. Not when he's sober. 

"Uh huh," he replies. 

"It's your turn," Banner urges. 

Thor looks around the circle. There are a couple other celebrities there, but nobody Thor cares to know. Nobody else got dragged here against their will. Nobody else cares at all about him, they're just waiting for their turn to talk.

"Pass," he says.

"You passed yesterday," Banner points out. "Can you think of something today? Anything."

Thor considers it, then decides he doesn't feel like talking about anything recent.

"My dad used to beat me with a belt," he says, tone blank, eyes trained on his hands, clasped in his lap. "And one day I got tired of it. I took the belt and I took it to the garage and I looped it around one of the support beams, but the wood was rotten and it broke. It broke when I tried it at home some time ago too." 

Always doomed to fail.

Dr. Banner makes a humming noise, “And why that particular memory, Thor?”

Thor looks up at the man with a half-hearted scowl, “You’re the therapist. Aren’t you supposed to be the one to figure that out?”

“You know that’s not now it works here, Thor. Everyone does. You’ll need to be more open to the idea of sharing your thoughts - it’ll be difficult at first, but it’ll make things easier in the long run.”

“Oh, but it’s more fun this way,” Thor mutters, because isn’t that who Thor is? Who he’s always been?

The party boy, the rebel, the incorrigible country star.

Looking down at his hands again, Thor starts tuning Dr. Banner out when he tries to impart whatever secret of the universe he’s learned with his fancy M.D. - no fucking words will make him get better, least of all his own.

\- - - - - - - 

Loki resists the urge to ask about or to check in with Thor for the better part of the month after the entire fiasco during the Grammys. It’s difficult, though, as most of the press interviews he does, the questions are thinly veiled, if at all, directed towards the man.

Where is Thor now?

Were they in a relationship again? Did they ever break up in the first place?

What does Loki feel about what happened at the Grammys?

As it is, people are more interested in Loki’s private life and in getting gossip about Thor than they are about his raging success. It only serves to reignite his resentment towards Thor, serves to reawaken his anger at the man. As soon as that anger comes though, Loki is also filled with grief and guilt and longing and a riot of other emotions as well.

Thinking about Thor is almost as exhausting as taking care of him or being with him - so Loki tries his damn best not to.

It works, for a while. 

\--------

Ninety days. It's the longest Thor has been sober since he'd started drinking, and it's been the absolute worst ninety days of his entire life. Did anyone really think this would help? All it's done is open up scabbed over wounds in his psyche that he used to be able to fill with alcohol and xanax but which he now can only fill with... self-loathing. 

He's not an idiot, he knows how badly he screwed up, how hated he must be by everyone he cares about. None of them probably care about him anymore. None of them came to see him, not one of them, not once. It's fine, though, he tells himself, because he's going home. He's sitting on a commercial airline flight, trying to resist the urge to ask for anything besides a Sprite, writing. Not songs, no, he won't be doing that anymore. But one thing that did stick with him was the idea of making amends.

He has a lot to make amends for. A lot to apologize for, and he wants to make sure he does it before it's too late. He doesn't know what else to do.

Even then though, even then - the words he writes are hollow and are worth probably as much as Thor is worth at this point, which is to say, absolutely nothing - worth Jack shit. It doesn’t do anyone justice for every fuck up and every pain Thor’s dealt to the one’s closest to him.

When he gets home, there are reminders of just how fucked up he’d been.

Newspapers are still lining most of the windows, the occasional empty beer bottle or empty pill bottle here and there, the thick layer of dust that’s almost on every surface of his furniture, the stains on the walls and the floor and the sheets and the pillows.

It makes him hate himself even more.

Thor debates with himself whether to let anyone know that he’s back at home, and finally decides to at least inform Hela and Loki.

\- back home. 90 days. im doing good.

Thor waits.

And waits.

And waits some more.

After almost fifteen hours, all he gets is a, ‘Keep it up, little brother. Visit soon.’ from his sister, and silence from Loki. It makes Thor miss him even more, so he redirects his attention towards his letters - until his longing for Loki prompts him to listen to the man’s songs from the album that won him those Grammys, just so he can hear the man’s voice even if the others words are angry.

It hurts more than he ever could have thought possible. 

"It's not even a holiday," Loki's voice accuses him. "Nothing to celebrate."

It hurts, it hurts. "I'm not gonna stay and watch you circle the drain..."

Oh. Oh. Loki's not coming back. That's what that means. It means Loki is fed up with him. It means Loki will never come back. It means Thor will be alone, forever.

He wants to cry.

He wants a drink.

Thor only does the former, because he definitely needs to stay sober.

He definitely needs to keep himself away from the booze now because if he doesn’t, he might forget what it is he really needs to do.

It takes two weeks til’ Thor finally finishes up his letters, and in that span of time, he’s also come to terms with the fact that people... really had it easier without him. Loki has managed to pump out a couple of hit singles, Hela is doing just fine with her current client, his friends have nothing to worry about and not babysit him, Stark and Rogers don’t have a public laughing stock...

Nobody is going to miss him.

Even if Thor misses the people in his life, even if he misses THE life, he’ll never be able to go back to it.

He calls Hela after a month of preparation.

\--------

Hela glances at her phone and sees her brother's picture - him in a rare moment of true happiness, though he does have a beer in his hand - as it rings. She considers not answering. 

She can't just let it ring though. Thor hasn't called the whole time he's been out of rehab, though she has texted him a couple times. Chin up, keep positive sort of shit. 

"Hey," she says finally lifting the phone to her ear. "How are you doing?"

Thor's voice on the other end of the line is a little choked up, like he's been crying. "I'm sorry, Hela," he says quickly, "I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for being the shittiest brother. I don't - I don't -"

Hela taps her fingernails on her desk, agitated now. Thor sounds sober but absolutely miserable. "Use your words, little brother. What's wrong?" As if she needs to ask. 

"I can't do it anymore," he breathes, and Hela's own breath catches in her chest. 

"Thor..." 

He'd said it before, after a particularly brutal punishment from Odin. And then she'd found him underneath a fallen support beam in the garage, a belt around his neck. 

"I'm sorry, Hela. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," she says firmly, booking herself a plane ticket to Nashville as she talks. "Be safe. Are you safe?" 

"Uh huh," Thor replies and he's lying, she can tell. Who does she know in Nashville who can go check on him?

Ugh, nobody. 

"Thor, I need you to write me a song, okay? Get all this out of you. I'm coming to see you. I'll be there tonight. I want to hear the song when I get there, okay?"

“It’s all- it’s all true, isn’t it? It’s all true,” Thor is saying on the other end, and Hela doesn’t know what he means but it opens up the floodgates of fear even more, “what he said. It’s all true. Fuck, I-“

A pause, a crash. Hela feels her pulse double.

“Thor? Thor - talk to me. What’s-“

“Everyone hates me,” Thor says when he gets back on, his voice a little dead, too soft to belong to her boisterous brother. It’s said as though he’s stating a fact, “I’m so sorry, Hela. You always... you always took care of me. Even when I was a little shit. You took care of me, stood by me and I... I HIT you... I hit you... I hurt you... I never should have- I don’t- I’m so sorry... so sorry... you deserved better... I’m so, so sorry.”

Hela bites her lip, ready to drop everything if she can just be there with Thor in an instant, because she can hear him crying again as his voice breaks. She’s sure her own cracks as well and sounds a little shaky as she says,

“Little brother, write me a song please, okay? I’ll be right there soon, and then we can talk, and then you’re going to make it up to me with a lifetime membership at some exclusive spa or something, hm?” Hela tries to joke, but it falls flat, kind of odd in the way that Thor thought brown m&m’s are odd.

Thor continues to cry on the other end, then he starts taking deep, heaving breaths, then calmer ones, softer ones. Hela is almost relieved until Thor speaks again.

“I love you, Hela. Thank you. For everything,” Thor says.

It sounds like a goodbye.

“I love you too, little brother. Write me a song, okay?”

“I’ll try. I love you. I’m going now.”

Hela can't help the sinking feeling that she knows what she's going to find when she gets to Nashville.

\-------

He does write a song, but not for Hela. He writes one for Loki, writes one in response to Loki's bitter, angry diatribes against him. He writes, and he writes, and then he sets up a microphone plugged into his laptop, and he records it. 

Then he writes to Loki. The rest of the letters he had mailed, but this one he'll leave here. This one he'll leave on the laptop, with Loki's name written in bright green ink. 

This one is smudged with tears and full of all the pain and guilt Thor has been sitting on for what seems like his entire life. 

And then he calls Loki. Just to hear his voice one more time. It goes to voicemail. That's good enough. "Hey. I know you probably are just gonna delete this, but I... I just wanted to say... I really love you. I never stopped loving you. And I'm sorry that I made it impossible to love me back. It'll be okay now. I hope... I want you to be happy. Just... this is... I'm sorry. I want you to be happy. That's all. Um. I'm going now. Bye, Loki."

He hangs up the phone and sets it beside the letter and his laptop. He stares down at them for a long, long time, and then he does what he's been planning to do for months now. 

He'd failed before. He refuses to fail again. He doesn't want to be sober for this, but that's exactly what he deserves, so he forgoes anything else in favor of heading out to the garage. This garage is much sturdier than the squalid shack at Dad's place, or a ceiling fan bolted to the ceiling. 

This time, he has a rope. 

This time.

This time.

Thor comforts himself with the fact that at the very least, he won’t be bothering his loved ones ever again. He’s already written up his will, already had the house cleaned up and repaired, and already made arrangements with the local funeral home.

His loved ones will finally be able to let go the burden that is Thor’s very existence.

This time, he’s going to do it right.

This time.

One last time.

\- - - - - - -

As soon as Thor had dropped the call, Hela immediately dials Loki up. The man was in the middle of a recording session, but Hela can barely find it in her to care.

“Have you talked to him?” 

“Hello to you too,” Loki says with some snark, “can this wait? I’m-“

“Have you talked to him?!” Hela repeats shrilly. She doesn’t have time for Loki’s bullshit - she needs to know, because if Thor calls Loki then maybe the younger man can keep her brother on the phone until someone gets there, until they can get there.

“I... I haven’t. Is everything okay?”

“No. He’s going to do something. He’s going to... I’m heading to Nashville - already booked a flight. Do you know anyone there?”

“No, but- what are you talking about? What’s happening??”

“If he calls you, keep him on the phone. He’s going to try again,” Hela says, and when Loki ‘asks try what again?’, Hela grits her teeth, “to kill himself.”

There’s a pause before Loki speaks up, “I can borrow the private jet from Tony. You still in LA?”

"Yes, I'm leaving for the airport now. Meet me there, okay? Leave the studio right now." She's already grabbed her purse and her keys. 

She can get to Nashville in seven hours if the jet is available. Nine if she has to use the ticket she bought. Either way, it seems like far, far too long.

\-------

Loki hangs up the phone and looks at Tony through the glass. "I need the jet. Right now," he says. 

"What the fuck for?" Tony demands. "We're right in the middle of this!"

Loki looks down at his hands, starting to shake. His stomach is in knots. Surely Hela is wrong, but Loki can't just wait to see what happens. 

Because if something DOES happen... "Tony, please." 

Tony sighs. "Fine. Go. Whatever. Fucking diva."

Loki doesn't have the time or energy to correct him. He runs out the door.

Happy drives him to the airport in less time than it normally would have taken, but even then, Loki thinks it’s already too long. He’d heard the voicemail Thor had left him and all the things he’d tried to keep buried had come crashing back it almost feels like he’s drowning in them.

Loki hadn’t meant to willfully ignore Thor after they left him at rehab - he hadn’t, but yet that’s what happened.

What Loki had meant to do was visit Thor. What he had meant to do was go to Nashville when he found out that Thor had been clean for ninety days, or even message him and congratulate him. What he’d meant to do was call and talk to the man.

Loki didn’t though. 

Loki was still angry.

And Thor isn’t picking up anymore.

Now Loki only feels sick to his stomach at the prospect of never seeing the other man again, or hearing his voice. There’s still a touch of anger, but not nearly as potent as the thick fear that makes him want to throw up.

When Loki meets Hela, she wraps him in a hug that’s so uncharacteristically soft that the reality and seriousness of this whole thing is slammed home even more. Hela pulls away, and she’s got a severe look on her face,

“Thanks for coming. Has he called you?”

“He tried but it went to voicemail - I don’t... I wasn’t able to answer it. I was...” Loki doesn’t even know what he was doing.

“Let’s go. He isn’t picking up and none of his dunderhead friends are in town. I don’t know anyone either. Emergency services there can’t do anything, so I’m told, it’s bullshit.”

It is bullshit.

Loki tries not to let the anxiety overwhelm him the entire flight there. Surely Thor just relapsed and fucking drank himself into a stupor, and then they could stick him back in rehab and then life would go on.

As usual.

\--------

Thor takes his time. It all needs to be done just right. He takes his time and ties the noose carefully according to the tutorial he found online. He takes his time and cleans out his refrigerator and wipes down the inside. He takes his time and takes a long, hot shower and combs his hair and beard. He takes his time and finds something to wear that isn't sweatpants but still fits. Jeans and a button-down. 

And despite wanting to punish himself with sobriety, Thor finds he’s a coward and gives in to his vices and drinks one last beer. 

And then one more last beer. 

And then one more. 

He takes his time drinking through the last of the alcohol in the house - there isn't much, and he's barely drunk by the time all is said and done. 

He takes his time setting up the chair under the beam he's chosen. Attaches the rope carefully, meticulous with the knots. 

Steps up on the chair, slips the noose around his neck. Tightens it behind his left ear. 

He feels like he should say something to mark the occasion, but no words come to mind.

He's used them all up.

He steps off the chair.

\- - - - -

Loki throws a wad of cash at the driver that brought them to Thor’s estate, and he rushes in with Hela hot on his heels.

The door is unlocked, and the house is immaculate - no stains on the floor, no holes in the walls, no newspapers covering the windows. It should have made Loki feel relief, but instead only serves to aggravate his already fraying nerves.

“I’ll check out back,” Hela says, and moves for the sliding doors that lead to the patios and backwoods,

“Thor!?” He calls out, feet taking long strides as he moves towards the kitchen, the living room - he goes to the bedroom upstairs and finds it empty too, even the broken remains of the ceiling fan is gone and a new one is hanging in its place.

Loki checks the guest rooms and the bathrooms, and moves downstairs again to the study. Thor’s laptop is there and so is his phone, and a folded up piece of paper, but before Loki can go inside to pick them up, Hela is screaming.

Loki runs towards the sound of the screams, to the garage, and when he enters, all he can think of to do is exclaim, "Oh fuck!"

Hanging from the support beam is Thor, his face purple and swollen, eyes bulging as he twists at the end of the rope.

"Cut him down!" Hela shouts, already on her phone with the paramedics, trying her best to lift his body to ease the tension on the man’s neck. 

Loki looks around the garage until he finds a box cutter. Using the toppled chair beneath Thor, he climbs up and slices the rope. He can't quite catch the man as he falls, but falling down is better than dying. 

Oh God, Thor might be dead. 

Loki loosens the rope around Thor's neck - there is already angry raw bruising - and presses his ear to Thor's chest. He's not breathing, but Loki can make out the barest beating of his heart.

Loki immediately begins CPR, though he isn't sure he's doing it right. He feels Thor's ribs cracking under the pressure of the chest compressions, but it barely rises when he closes his mouth over Thor’s own to force air into the man’s lungs.

It feels like forever before he hears sirens coming down the driveway.

When the EMS arrive and take over, Loki can barely find the mind to move as they busy themselves over Thor, speaking in rapid-fire technical terms that neither he nor Hela can understand.

They hook him up to a breathing mask, one of them continuing chest compressions as the other pops open the button-down Thor has on and places pads on his chest.

Loki feels and hears Hela fall to her knees beside him more than he sees her, and the usually stony-faced woman is openly crying. Loki’s own cheeks are dry. He knows he’s probably in shock.

“Fuck… fuck it... fuck...” Hela keeps repeating, and Loki lifts an arm to wrap around her shoulders. Watching with morbid fascination as the team tries to revive Thor.

Thor, whose only movements are the shaking from the efforts to resuscitate him.

Thor, whose lips and fingertips are blue with the lack of oxygen.

Thor, whose neck is mottled purple and black.

Thor, who still isn’t breathing.

“Why isn’t he breathing?” Loki whispers to himself, “why isn’t it working? Why isn’t it working?!”

\--------

Clint Barton hadn’t thought his shift would end saving Thor Odinson from a suicide attempt, but here he is. While Nat continues chest compressions, Clint busies himself moving to Thor's head, ripping open vent kit and discarding the mask.

"No chest rise. I'm tubing him," he informs his partner. 

She stops compressions and helps tilt Thor's head back. His tongue is swollen, as are his vocal chords, and it's hard to get the tube positioned, but Clint isn't called Hawkeye for nothing. 

It slides in. On goes the bag, and he starts pumping air into the man’s lungs. Thor's gets a pulse established from CPR and a shock from the AED, so the main concern right now is air flow. "We gotta go," Nat says and together they get Thor onto the stretcher, Clint continuing to squeeze the bag in a steady rhythm. 

"We're taking him to TriStar, it's the closest," Clint says, "if you want to meet us there." There wont be room for the family to ride in the ambulance, not with all the stuff they'll need to do to keep Thor alive on the way to the hospital.

They get the stretcher inside with minimal fuss, and soon enough they’re on their way to the hospital. Clint keeps a vigilant eye on the man’s vitals the entire way, hoping, for the sake of the two family members they left behind - that Thor doesn’t code again and makes it.

\- - - - - - -

Loki and Hela grab an Uber to the hospital, which is fucking ridiculous. Hela manages to psych herself up enough during the ride that when they get there, she immediately marches up to the info desk and takes charge, telling them of all the things that they should know about her brother.

Loki finds a chair to drop into and let’s the events of the day wash over him.

He takes out the note from the study that he’d brought along, opening it up and feeling - finally - the tears that haven’t come at the sight of Thor’s heavy-handed scrawl.

By the time he’s done reading, Loki is openly bawling, a hand covering his eyes, the other smoothing out the paper on his lap.

He hears Hela take a seat next to him, and Loki hands her the letter wordlessly.

There aren’t any words he can use to explain the pain written on there. Loki wasn’t even aware it was possible to convey that much hurt on ink and paper, and yet...

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah? Whose fault is it then?”

Hela sighs, “Nobody’s.”

It has to be someone's fault. Of course it does. This could have all been prevented, somehow. It could have been, couldn't it? Fuck, how could he have missed this? What Thor has in that letter... how had everyone missed it?

Or had they seen it, and just not cared enough to do anything? Or was Thor just that good at hiding it? Or a combination? Loki is tearing himself apart and he feels like he's going to throw up.

Thor might be dead.

Thor might be dead. Loki might not ever hear his voice again, or hold him at night. He might never watch him write and sing, or run his hands through his hair. Hell, he would take Thor's raspy smoker's cough at this point. 

"If you have to blame someone, blame our father," Hela says softly, slipping her fingers between Loki's and squeezing his hand. He never would have thought her capable of tenderness.

Loki swallows thickly and closes his eyes, trying to breathe through it. It does help keep the nausea at bay for a while.

\- - - - - - -

They wait for a couple of hours until someone comes to talk to them - well, talks to Hela, but they both listen to the news.

Thor is alive.

He’s stable.

Loki feels an overwhelming rush of emotions at that declaration that his knees go weak. 

The doctor explains that the early intervention was what saved Thor’s life - them cutting him down from the noose and Loki performing CPR, which, even if it resulted in cracked ribs, had kept Thor’s brain oxygenated enough for further resuscitation attempts in the ambulance and in their hospital to be successful.

There’s extensive damage to the muscles and organs in Thor’s neck, and there’s still no telling about how the suffocation has affected him mentally - not until he wakes up anyways.

Loki holds to that, takes comfort in it - that the man said ‘when’ Thor wakes up and not ‘if’.

And even if there's damage, Loki is determined not to let Thor scare him off again. He'll take the man, problems and all, and he won't ever turn his back again. He knows he's told himself this before, but look where that's gotten them. 

\--------

Thor doesn't wake up for another full week. In that time, the doctors have started treatments on his other health issues, brought about by his lifestyle and exacerbated by neglect. 

Hela can't help thinking that when Thor does wake up, he'll probably be the most physically healthy he's been in a decade or more, outside of the effects of his... 

Of his...

She still can't quite think it. She's tried to mentally prepare herself for the day she truly does lose her brother to his demons, but clearly those efforts have all been for nothing, because she's been a wreck.

Loki's presence is actually calming, somewhat. At the very least, it forces her to be the one in control, because she knows how hard Thor's letter hit him. She knows how hard it hit her and it wasn't directed at her. 

Being strong for Loki helps keep her emotions in check, and she appreciates that, even if he spends most of their days together in the waiting room or at Thor's bedside furiously scribbling in his notebook. 

Art through suffering. That's something Hela fully understands. Fuck, that's exactly how her brother got famous.

When Thor does wake up, he doesn’t talk or cry or rage - he doesn’t even try to charm the doctor who comes to speak with him, no fake smiles or lewd jokes... nothing. 

It would’ve been worrying, but the head physician had mentioned that it might be like that for a day or two as Thor comes to.

As it is, Hela and Loki barely leave the hospital, and when they do, it’s only to get changed at Thor’s house (because it can never be home again - not with the memory of Thor’s body hanging in the garage), and have a bite to eat.

It’s during one of those days that Loki finds himself at the study where he nabbed Thor’s goodbye letter. When he spies the laptop, he brings it over to the kitchen where Hela is pouring out some takeout onto plates to make themselves feel better about not actually cooking. They can pretend.

“You know his password?”

Hela lets out a huff of a laugh, “God of Thunder. Capital on the ‘g’ and ‘t’. He loved Thunderstruck by AC/DC when he was younger. Never got over it.”

Loki smiles a little and types it in and waits until it’s open. The desktop has an image of one of Loki’s photo shoot pictures on it - and it’s empty save for one mp3 file in the little corner named ‘for loki’.

“There’s a file here addressed to me,” Loki informs Hela, and she comes over to stand beside him.

Loki bites his lip.

“You can listen to it alone if you’d like. I could get you some headphones. Or I’ll go take a bath first.”

Loki worries his lower lip for a moment. "You can stay, if you want," he offers. He has a feeling he might need a hug after this. He clicks on the file and tears immediately spring to his eyes when Thor's voice comes from the speakers. 

"Hela told me to write, so I did." He sounds like he's been crying, and Loki wonders how long between this recording and going to the garage. He could probably figure it out, but he doesn't want to think about it. 

Thor starts playing the guitar, a melancholy melody. Then, he starts to sing and Loki feels his heart breaking just a little more. 

"Please don't tell me I'm too far gone," Thor sings, strong and clear. "I can't go on if I ain't living in your arms." Oh fuck, now Loki's crying outright. The lines repeat a few times and then, "Set me free, oh, oh," and then an abrupt stop, with a zzzppp of his fingernails sliding down the strings. "Sorry. That's all I got in me right now," Thor says. "I love you." 

Static, and then nothing.

"Fuck," is all Loki can say as he buries his face in his hands to hide his tears. "Fuck."

Loki feels Hela’s hand on his shoulder then, and the weight of it is comforting, but not enough to stop the tears.

When Hela speaks, her voice is also a little thick, “That’s Thor for you... he knows exactly the words to sing to hit where you’re most raw. Whether he knows he’s hurting you or not. It’s his gift.”

Loki laughs, swiping at his eyes. 

“Yeah,” the sound that comes from Loki is a croak that he hardly recognizes, “he’s got the voice of a fucking angel and the words to stab you in the heart with it.”

As he says it, Loki begins crying anew.

“What do we do...? He might not be able to sing again... he might not even talk again... fuck.”

Loki can’t imagine himself if he had no voice to sing with, can’t imagine a life forever silenced. Knowing Thor, knowing how hard the man has worked to make his voice heard and to get people to listen - knowing how much Thor loves to sing and perform and just SPEAK...

“We’ll help him through it.”

Loki sure as fuck hopes so.

\--------

It's another week before Thor starts showing signs of true awareness. The doctor had warned that the nerves to Thor's vocal chords have been damaged, and speaking will be difficult until vocal therapy is attempted. He assures them that there are also surgical options for treatment, but... it's clear Thor may not be able to sing again. They also are concerned about brain damage from the lack of oxygen, but before Thor is able to communicate in some capacity, they won't know for certain how extensive.

The thought makes Loki feel sick to his stomach constantly, unable to hold down any food, barely any water. He feels spread too thin, too fragile. He feels like everything is crumbling, and in the center of it all is Thor.

He's in the room when Thor fully wakes up. "Loki."

It's barely more than a harsh whisper, and the look on Thor's face suggests that it's also uncomfortable. "Its okay, don't talk, hold on." Loki flips to a blank page in his notebook and hands it over to Thor, who takes it with shaking hands. 

\- home soon? 

Loki presses his lips together. "You're really sick, Thor. You need to stay here a while," he says gently.

\- okay you visited saw I was alive you don't have to stay I get it you don't want to stay I'm sorry 

Loki reaches out and grabs Thor's hands, the notebook falling onto the blankets. "I'm staying," he says firmly.

Thor looks as though Loki had just punched him, or maybe stabbed him half a dozen times. He looks absolutely gutted. Loki gets up so he can sit on the edge of the hospital bed after he puts the rails down, bringing Thor’s hand to his lap.

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He flops about uselessly like that for a couple of minutes before he settles with just embracing Thor.

“I’m so sorry, Thor. I am so, so sorry.”

The man makes a strangled noise at the back of his throat, tries to push Loki away so he can answer, but Loki holds fast.

“I wasn’t here for you. And when I was, it was for my own interests. I’ve been so fucking selfish, Thor, and I’m sorry.”

By the time Loki’s done, Thor has pried him off, a look of distress on his face accompanied by slight grimaces as he tries to force out words that his throat no longer has the capacity to produce,

“Not... not... your fault- not-“

“Thor, stop-“

“Not. Your. Fault.” Thor enunciates, a hand coming up to hold his neck, “Mine. All me.”

Loki shakes his head, tears rolling down his cheeks. He grips Thor's face between his hands and stares him in the eyes. "It wasn't your fault, Thor. We all- its - we should have been better to you."

Thor grimaces and twists away, rubbing at his throat. "I... kept... em- embarrassing... you..." Thor croaks out, and Loki hands him the notebook again.

"Please don't try to talk yet," he pleads. There might still be hope that Thor will regain his voice, but if he overtaxes himself now, because Loki can't get him to settle... 

"I listened to the song," Loki says after a moment. "I'm so sorry. That album, I was angry and being petty." He has no other excuse, no other explanation. 

\- it was good I would have liked it if it wasn't about me

Loki manages a wet chuckle. "Thanks, I guess," he says, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. 

\- still love you superstar

"I still love you too."

Thor blinks blearily at that, and Loki somehow feels worse. Thor’s astonishment at that makes Loki’s gut coil in guilt. Had Thor really felt that alone and unloved...?

Yes. Yes he had. Otherwise, why would he have...

\- im sorry

Loki sighs, leaning forward to bring their foreheads together, “Don’t be sorry. I’ll stay this time. I’ll show you.”

\- - - - - -


	10. I'd Still Want You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA "If I Said I'm Happy to be Free, the Only One I'd Fool is Me"
> 
> Loki decides to stay, and Thor decides to let Loki help him to pick the up the pieces of his shattered self.

Loki follows through with it, even with Stark hounding his ass on recording his new album. He manages to get the man to agree to a break, and it’s not that difficult.

News of Thor’s attempted suicide, no matter how much effort Hela and Loki puts in keeping it under wraps, gets out. With it, the media brings up the Grammys, the concert in Nashville, the one he sang “Hurt” in, the one in LA, absolutely everything that there is to know about how dysfunctional Thor always was. That, and how far he’d fallen.

Loki wants to burn down every outlet that paints Thor as the stereotype ‘bad’ celebrity. He wants to prove to them that there was so much to Thor - his talent, his musical genius, his big heart and generous nature...

“Look, either way, people will talk. We just... gotta shield him from that. He doesn’t need that kind of negativity. He’s been doing well,” Hela tells him one afternoon, nearly a month and a half after Thor’s suicide attempt.

“I know. I hate it. I just... he’s still got so much left to him, you know? Did you know he’s started writing songs again?”

“Already?”

“Yeah... they’re mostly half-baked, like he’s just playing around again, but I saw one that had a lot of potential to it. He ripped that one out,” Loki thinks about the page, another of Thor’s soul-crushing words on paper, another song dedicated to Loki.

“What are you going to do about it?”

"I'm going to just keep encouraging him," Loki says with a shrug. What else can he really do? "I'm going to finish this one song, though," he adds, because it needs something else, it needs a more hopeful spin to it. And Loki wants so badly to write with Thor again. 

"How's the speech therapy going?" she asks next, stirring her coffee unnecessarily- she drinks it black. "He's never very communicative when I visit." She sounds a little sad at that, especially knowing Loki at least gets proof Thor is mentally improving. 

"He's... I think it's really complicated," Loki says softly, trying to reassure her. "He’s frustrated with the therapy. I'm sure you can imagine."

Hela snorts. "How many tantrums?" she asks.

"At least three a day," Loki replies with a slight smile. If Thor is throwing tantrums, he's getting better.

“I pity the staff who are assigned to him,” Hela says with a smile of her own. “Listen, I’m going to be heading to San Diego for a week by Friday. I’ve been away for too damn long already and my charge is starting to get a little angsty about it.”

“More than Thor?”

“Oh honey, you know that nobody can beat Thor when it comes to that,” Hela says with a smile.

Loki tries not to fidget at the thought of needing to keep up with Thor’s progress on his own. Going back to that big empty house without Hela around to at least sass him. Loathe as he is to admit it, but Hela is actually decent company past the snarling and sneering. 

“Hey. You’ll be okay. You both will,” she says to him once she sees Loki’s expression. “Let me listen to that song you’ll be working on, alright?”

"Yeah, alright," Loki agrees, trying to push down his growing anxiety. 

\------

Thor wants to hate every single moment of being in the hospital. He's been here for months now, in the medical-psychiatric ward, enduring speech and vocal therapy and physical therapy and behavioral therapy and substance abuse therapy and probably a bunch of other therapies he doesn't even know about.

He wants to hate it. It's frustrating, and tedious, and embarrassing. He wants to wish he hadn't failed again, wants to still be angry and bitter. 

But, somehow, none of those things are true.

He doesn't hate being in the hospital. He's being cared for. He doesn't have to worry about anything but feeling better. There's hardly any pressure at all. He doesn't even hate the therapies, all things considered. His voice is recovering slowly, but there is progress. His cognitive functions are still a little iffy, but improving. He can write, at least. 

Most of the reason he doesn't hate this, and doesn't fall back into the depths of depression, is because Loki is still here.

Every day, sitting with him. Sometimes talking, sometimes writing, sometimes just watching TV. He brings his guitar at one point and gives an impromptu concert for the ward. Thor claps the hardest and wolf whistles in lieu of cheering. He's so proud of his superstar. So, so proud.

Then one day, out of the blue, Loki presents him with a permission slip for them to go out for a day, and Thor almost, almost doesn’t want to, because he still doesn’t like going out. Thor doesn’t like even the idea of stepping out of the psychiatric ward to the rest of the hospital, much less the prospect of being out in public.

His hesitance is won over with his need for a break in the routine though, and while he would have preferred it at home - the place Loki brings him to is the next best thing. 

The man drags him to one of the recording studios here affiliated with Stark’s label, and despite the fact that Thor doesn’t like reminders of his past, of what he lost, Loki looks excited.

“What’re we... doin’ here?” Thor manages to ask as Loki let’s them in. It’s surprisingly empty, probably at Loki’s request.

“I’m going to be recording a song. But I need your permission first before anything.”

Thor tilts his head a little, because when has Loki ever needed his permission? Unless... unless the song is about him again - Thor doesn’t think he’d like any dedications right now. He’s about to tell Loki so when the man produces a piece of paper he’d been keeping in his pocket, smoothing it out to let him see.

Thor blushes a little, both because he’s flustered but mostly because he’s embarrassed- a little ashamed, because the words that stare back at him are his own.

“You hiding love songs from me?”

“No. No, I... it just came to me. Had to put it down. I don’t... I can’t sing.”

Thor looks up to see Loki on the piano, “I had a tune in mind, if you’d like to listen. And uh... I worked on it a bit more. Added my own words here and there. Would you... like to hear it?”

Thor nods and manages, "Yeah." 

And Loki plays. The nuance he's added brings depth and life to the lyrics and the tune is something out of the old times, a country touch to it that's so different from Loki's current sound. 

By the time Loki gets to, "Every time we say goodbye baby it hurts," Thor has tears in his eyes. His heart feels full, but not in the way that makes him want to claw at his chest and drown the feeling in gallons of liquor. It's in the way that makes him certain that he wants to make himself a better person, to make sure they don't have to say goodbye again. 

"When the sun goes down," Loki sings, "and the band won't play, I'll always remember us this way."

The final note rings out and Thor finally exhales. 

"That... that... Loki..."

Loki looks up at him, almost seeming shy. "Did you hate it?" he asks.

Thor shakes his head vehemently, swiping at his eyes and sniffling. He takes Loki’s hand and gives his knuckles a kiss, then twists a little to envelop the man in a warm embrace.

“Amazing. Loved it... superstar.”

Loki returns the embrace, and Thor feels the man burying his face against his neck, then feels the man’s lips pressing kisses there. He feels a thick guilt flooding him, and he rubs the man’s back in an attempt to soothe him - despite Thor being the one in tears.

“Thank you,” Thor whispers, because he’d overstretched his voice enough for today. Then with one last push, he tells Loki he loves him and tightens his embrace.

\-------

As it turns out, Thor's charm and charisma isn't just something he puts on. As he starts feeling better, Loki gets to see his true personality start to emerge, and he's glad to see it's the best parts he remembers. 

He makes the nurses, male and female, laugh and nearly swoon with his jokey flirtations, and he turns the charm on Loki more and more each day. 

And it seems like he's truly getting better, and more to the point, it seems like he wants to get better.

"When do I get to take you home, darlin'?" Thor asks one day in the played-up Southern twang he uses with fans. 

Loki has been keeping up with Thor's doctors, and he knows how much progress he's made. He also knows there's a ways to go before Thor is stable enough to be on his own again. The antidepressants help, and the therapy helps, but Thor's emotional damage runs deep. 

Loki worries Thor's happiness is surface level, but there's nothing indicating that at all.

Still. How could he not worry? 

The last time he'd taken Thor's mental state for granted... well.

He’s brought out of his musings when he feels a peck on his lips, and Loki rolls his eyes at the grin Thor is throwing his way. He’s absolutely sunny, but there are bags under his eyes today, and a slump to his shoulders that hadn’t been there the day prior. 

“We’ll go home soon, okay?” Loki tells him.

A vague answer because he doesn’t really want to risk pulling Thor out of the program prematurely, but also because Loki’s just about to release his latest album and that always comes with too many eyes and rumors.

It seems that’s exactly what kept Thor awake last night too, apparently. 

“Won’t you be having a press tour soon?”

“I’m still begging off Tony for that. I’d rather stay here.”

“You ain’t crazy, baby,” Thor teases, poking Loki’s side. It makes him laugh, but it’s a nervous sort of laugh,

“Oh, I might be a little.”

“For me, I know.”

Loki does give a heartfelt chuckle at that. The man is relentless, “True, that. But I’m serious, I’m still working with Stark on that. I think I’ll be able to get away with only a week’s worth, and nowhere too far. Hela will be able to stay for the meantime.”

“You don’t have to hold yourself back, you know. I’ll support you. Always. M’proud of you.”

Loki swallows the lump in his throat. "Yeah, I know, but I would rather not be on the road again for a while, and press tours suck anyway." 

Thor chuckles, a deep and throaty sound now. "That they sure do," he agrees. "It's not that I would mind you around, but I... don't want you to put your career on hold. You do that, you'll lose out." 

Loki doesn't want to lose out, but these days it means he doesn't want to lose out on time with Thor. He's doing well now, but what happens when he's alone again? 

Tony had been adamant that Loki give him something in order to promote the album, but Loki hardly wants to release it anymore anyway. He wrote most of it after the Grammys. It’s... not flattering. 

And he certainly doesn't want Thor to hear any of it.

He decides honesty is the best way to go about it now,

“I just... don’t like the songs I wrote. They’re ugly and petty and... I was so mad,” Loki admits, and wow, he’s had that in his chest for so long, held onto it for so long. “I’m not anymore, but some of the songs I wrote...”

Thor nods, as though he understands - and of course Thor does, because he’d done the exact same thing during the takeoff of Loki’s career. 

“I just want to get that one out and start on something else again. I wanna pretend I never wrote those songs. I don’t like that I can’t.”

“Who says you can’t?”

Loki blinks at him. "I have a contract," he says. Surely Thor understands his obligations. 

Thor shrugs. "Break your contract. We could start our own label. Us and Hela." He sounds so goddamn nonchalant about it, like starting record labels is something you just DO.

"Have you lost your mind?" he asks and maybe it's not the best choice of words, but Thor just holds up the wrist adorned with his hospital ID bracelet and replies, 

"I really, honestly, have." He's smiling as he says it, though, and not one of those fake smiles either. "I'm serious. Why not?" 

"Because neither of us knows shit about the business side of things?" Loki suggests. 

"Hela does," Thor shoots back. "Come on." He leans towards Loki so their noses are touching. "Let me convince you."

The action is so reminiscent of that time they had a shower together for the first time that Loki nods without thinking. The grin on Thor’s face is so ridiculous that it calms the butterflies that spring up in Loki’s stomach.

“It’s going to be great.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

\- - - - - - -

“Honestly, what were you two thinking?”

Loki and Thor flinch as Hela berates them, pinching the bridge of her nose, but it’s more exasperation than actual anger. The two of them though, Loki and Thor, are like children as of the moment, nudging each other and giving each other frowns.

“It’s going to be great,” Thor says, repeating the sentiment to Hela as he’d done to Loki.

Hela, though, is no sucker for her baby brother’s theatrics and brash decisions.

“If you two can come up with an album for me, then maybe I’ll think about it.”

“We accept that challenge.”

Hela quirks her lips into a smirk. "Alright, impress me."

\-------

Tony isn't happy Loki is breaking his contract, and he's even less happy about the reason. "You can't make it personal," he says. 

"But it was personal," Loki protests. "Really personal, and I dragged Thor through the mud when he really didn't deserve it."

"You do remember what happened, right? Why you were so angry?"

Loki clenches his first. "Of course I do," he replies tightly. "But I'm not angry anymore. Well, not angry at Thor anyway." Because he's certainly still angry at the circumstances that led them here, many of which were not really Thor's fault in the grand scheme of things.

Loki has come to terms with that.

Tony still looks displeased, but then he says something Loki thought the man would not be capable of saying, offers something Loki had thought was beyond Tony’s capacity to offer because he’s kind of an asshole-

“Alright. If you or your boy run into trouble or need any help, don’t hesitate to give me a call. Or maybe hesitate but just a little - I’m a busy man.”

Loki blinks dumbly at the other, then smirks, “See, I knew you were soft underneath all that playboy persona.”

“Don’t push your luck, buddy.”

Loki laughs, feeling surprisingly lighter even as his professional career’s future becomes less certain - surprisingly lighter considering this was his dream and now he’s leaving the best thing to have happened because... well, because while getting the contract with Tony was life changing, Loki realizes it really wasn’t the best thing that had happened to him.

Meeting Thor... keeping Thor. That’s the best that had come out of this entire experience.

“You’re going to say something fucking cliche and overly cheesy, I can tell. please get out before you soil my space with it.”

Loki manages a chuckle. "Alright, alright. Thanks, Tony. I mean it."

He had expected it to be so much harder.

\-----

Breaking his contract is one thing. Putting together a record worth showing Hela is another. He and Thor still write well together, astoundingly well, but Loki can tell Thor is getting frustrated.

"It's not the same if I cant sing along," he complains one day as Loki is plunking out a melody on the portable keyboard he had bought for the sole purpose of bringing it to the hospital. 

Thor has decided not to get out of bed today, though most days he's happy to walk around the hospital grounds or sit in the common area or even just at the small desk in his room while Loki perches on the bed.

Loki wonders what Thor talked about in therapy today, because he's really only like this nowadays when he digs a little too deep, past the surface to the real pain.

Loki worries a little, on days like this, that it really is all just an act, like before, that Thor isn't really improving. But then the day will pass and Thor will be back to his boisterous self.

“We can ask your doctor what we can do about it, there might be options we can take.”

Thor slumps a bit, eyes going distant in the way Loki doesn’t really like, “Like surgery? Then I’ll wait another what... six months, a whole year, only to find out I’m still as useless as ever?”

The harsh self degradation brings Loki to a halt, and Thor looks as though he wants to take his words back, if only because he doesn’t want Loki to be saddled with it. Loki’s already heard the words though, and much as Thor wants for him not to worry, it’s nigh impossible.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Thor shifts on the bed, then throws his head back, staring at the light fixtures, “I thought... I just thought I’d be more useful. I’m getting better but I... I’m still just a burden, honestly.”

Loki stands and walks over, pushing at Thor to make room on the narrow bed, swinging his leg over the man’s own and resting his cheek on the man’s chest - last time he’d done this, it was to check whether Thor was still alive, still breathing. Right now though, Loki can feel the steady rise and fall of the man’s chest and the strong ba-thump-ba-thump-ba-thump of his heart.

“You aren’t useless. You’re writing songs with me that I wouldn’t have even thought of writing, you’re getting better every day. You inspire me and you make me feel alive. You’re music in my eyes.”

Thor sighs, then he mumbles, “Sounds like a nice song. You’re music to my eyes.”

Loki smiles slightly, then sobers himself up, “What brought it on, baby? Talk to me.”

At the gentle probing, Thor tells him. Thor always caves first and tells him, and Loki listens, and Loki understands, and Loki doesn’t judge him ever. Thor cries, and gets angry, and cries some more, but by the end of it he’d always smile and thank Loki. It’ll be no different today.

Loki has no qualms with it, but he can tell that though Thor’s mood may have been brought on by digging into his experiences with Odin, Thor is still deeply frustrated with himself for not being able to make music as he once did.

"You're still brilliant," Loki tells him softly. 

Thor's expression tightens. "I can't hear you when you talk that quietly," he snaps, twisting onto his side and effectively removing Loki from his perch. 

While there are viable options for Thor's vocal chords, there are less for his hearing, and Loki winces as he stands back up. "I'm sorry," he says, louder. 

"Easy for you to forget, I'm sure," Thor huffs into his pillow. "You're not the one who has to live with it."

Thor has good days and bad days and this... this turns into a very bad day very quickly because soon Thor is sobbing brokenly, interrupted by occasional coughing, though he hasn't smoked since being admitted to the hospital - and Loki figures that might have something to do with his irritability, despite the nicotine patches. 

Even so. It's a bad day. But tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow is always better.

Loki waits until Thor has calmed himself somewhat then walks around the bed to stand in front of the man again, leaning down to press a kiss on his forehead. 

“Why don’t we call it quits for today so you can rest, mh? I’ll come back after breakfast tomorrow. Sounds good?”

Thor doesn’t answer.

He usually doesn’t, and Loki has already gotten used to the dynamic between them, so he waits until the man tells him to leave.

The psychiatrist had been very adamant about how to handle Thor whenever he has breakdowns - give him the power to decide things for himself, don’t take the decision away lest Thor views it as abandonment again, or indifference. 

“Sounds good.”

Loki holds back a sigh,

“Hey,” Thor looks up, eyes blank. “I love you.”

Thor looks back down, eyes still empty.

Tomorrow is always better, Loki tells himself again.

\- - - - - -

A week and two days pass until Thor hits a breaking point, and his frustrations mount into an outburst of anger that had been absent since he started treatments in the facility.

They’d been writing again in Thor’s room, Thor trying to let Loki listen to the melody he had in mind for the vocals, using his voice- but it cracks and croaks and sounds absolutely dismal.

Thor gets up to pace and roars, and it’s the first time he’s ever been physical, and it’s to hit a wall over and over and over-

When Loki tries to get him to stop and Thor accidentally elbows the younger man’s nose, the fight drains out of him and Thor is left sobbing again, and the pessimism and self-flagellation returns.

Loki, with blood flowing down his lips and chin, wraps Thor in his arms and rocks them together.

\------

"It's perfectly normal," the psychiatrist, a man named Sam Wilson tells Loki later. "There's a lot of underlying issues, and anger is a normal response to the process."

"He can't just be allowed to hit walls," Loki points out. Thor's knuckles are raw and bloody, now, too swollen to even play the guitar at the moment, which just makes things worse. 

"Well no shit," Wilson says, and Loki remembers why he likes the man. "But sometimes something like that might happen whether we want it to or not." He leans forward a bit. "You've got to be realistic here, Loki, Thor's got a lot of stuff to deal with and it's not always gonna be easy."

"No shit yourself," Loki replies, annoyed. Of course he knows it won't be easy. He's not an idiot. "He's backsliding, I can tell." 

Wilson does at least seem to be taking it all seriously. "Maybe he needs a med adjustment, or maybe he just needs to act out for a few days." He hands over a couple of pamphlets as he explains,

"There's a phenomenon in addiction recovery," he says, "called dry drunk syndrome, which basically means that the person might be sober, but the behavior patterns have not changed fully yet. Early in recovery it doesn't crop up as much because everything is new and different. But then routine sets in and the behavior patterns re-emerge. That's where Thor's at right now, if I had to give you an explanation right now."

Loki frowns. "So he'll... get better?"

Wilson nods. "Sure, it's just gonna suck off and on for a while, that's all."

So very reassuring.

It’s something though, and at least there’s an end to this phase that he can look forward to now. Despite not knowing how long it’s going to take, Loki is sure he’s already buckled up for the long haul. It surprises him, somewhat, that Loki finds he’s prepared to be in this for the rest of his life.

“You alright there?” Wilson asks, and Loki nods numbly.

“I’m just thinking about how much work there’s left to be done,” Loki answers. 

It’s an honest answer as he’s ever given - knowing and being around Thor has prompted more practices of being truthful than Loki’s known his entire life.

“You sure you’re up for it?”

“I am.”

Again with the honesty. Loki’s going to be a saint by the end of this.

\- - - - - 

Hela doesn’t like structure in her life, for the most part. Doesn’t like feeling constricted and held back, doesn’t like the almost claustrophobic feel to routines and schedules and fixed dates and appointments.

It was why, despite him being a little shit, she loved handling her baby brother.

Thor’s spontaneity and his fuck-it attitude towards everything was one of his more refreshing characteristics, and Hela had always loved that Thor was always genuine with what he did, consequences be damned.

When she hears about what happened at the facility from Loki, though, she feels the need to throttle him. Well... maybe not throttle because Hela STILL has nightmares about Thor hanging - but she does want to shake sense into him.

“He’s alright, though?” She says into the phone, glaring at one of her client’s older entourages who’s been hitting on her. Idiot.

“Yeah. He’s alright. They had to sedate him though, he was just... he wanted to get out so bad, wasn’t even listening to me one bit. But it’s okay, he’s safe. He’s still clean.”

She lets out a long breath. "Good," she says, "that's good. Thanks for letting me know." Her heart always skips a beat or two when she hears from Loki, always anticipating the worst. 

Because what she loved most about working with Thor had a distinctly darker side to it at times, that carefree persona causing himself no end of trouble, and that's what she is so afraid will happen yet again. 

"He's not getting out of here until everyone agrees he's ready," Loki assures her. "And he's not the one who gets to make that call anymore."

It's good, because Thor is still, even after all these months of therapy, impulsive as hell, and believes wholeheartedly that he's ready to leave. 

Hela knows he's not. Loki seems to know it too. If she has to find her baby brother in a puddle of his own vomit or hanging at the end of a rope again, she's not sure she'll be able to handle it. 

She knows she won't. "Tell him I love him," she requests. "I've got to go, but tell him that, and that I'll call him later today."

"Okay, sure." 

Hela stares at the phone in her hand for a moment after hanging it up. "Hang in there, little brother," she murmurs. 

\-------

Thor isn't completely asleep under the sedative's hold, but he's doped up enough that all he can do when Loki returns to the room is loll his head to the side and blink at him groggily.

"Feelin' drunk," he admits. 

"Yeah, that's what happens when you get jabbed in the ass cheek with a shot of valium," Loki replies, sitting beside the bed and lacing their fingers together. 

Thor snorts. "Was overkill." 

Loki furrows his brow. "You were trying to leave, and you started fighting me, and then you had a panic attack," he points out.

“Exactly.”

Loki sighs slightly at that and brings the man’s hand to his lips, kissing his knuckles then turning it over to do the same with his palm. Thor hums, pressing his face to Loki’s shoulder when the man climbs into bed with him.

Thor honestly doesn’t know why the other man is still here, but it’s been months and Loki hasn’t shown even the slightest indication that he’s leaving anytime soon. Thor loves him for staying, but it also makes him feel impossibly guilty - Loki’s probably fallen off of the pedestal he was on in the music industry. 

“Get some rest, Thor.”

“Mm. Don’t wanna. Been havin’ nightmares,” Thor answers, tongue made loose by the drugs.

“About?”

“Everyone tellin’ me to hang in there. Hang. Already done that.”

Loki stiffens slightly, and Thor huffs as the hand carding through his hair and scraping his scalp stops abruptly. A small nudge of his head is all it takes to get Loki to start back up again though.

“I’ll keep in mind not to use those words. Also, Hela says she loves you. She’s going to call you later.”

“Whoop-de-doo.”

As if he wants to talk to Hela. As if he wants to talk to anybody. Loki is here and that's good, but Thor is getting stir crazy. He wants to go home. He's even been looking at putting his house up for sale and buying a new one, to start fresh. 

But it won't matter if they never let him leave.

"Thor, please, you can't give up now," Loki says and Thor scowls. 

"M'not giving up. M'better. I wanna go home." He wants to stop feeling like a fragile thing ready to break at the slightest touch. He wants to be able to live his life again. 

He wants to be able to sing. But as the months wear on, it's starting to seem like it's never going to happen. 

"Close your eyes," Loki prompts and Thor huffs but does as he's told, because it's hard to keep them open anyway and he was really only doing it out of spite.

Loki keeps running his hair over Thor's scalp gently, and starts humming a tune. 

"I tried so hard my dear to show that you're my every dream," Loki sings, and Thor melts against his hand. "Yet you're afraid each thing I do is just some evil scheme. A memory from your lonesome past keeps us so far apart. Why can't I free your doubtful mind, and melt your cold, cold heart?"

Thor drifts along the waves of Loki's voice, silent tears rolling down his cheeks as he curls on his side and turns away.

\- - - - -

“Aren’t you going home yet?” Thor mumbles a couple of days later.

He’s been in bed for most of today, only getting up to head to the bathroom. Loki’s been meandering around and making himself busy for the most part, but the hour is getting late and he isn’t even preparing.

“I’m staying the night,” Loki says simply, and any other day, Thor would have been giddy about it, not not tonight.

“Isn’t that against the policy?”

Loki shrugs, “Being a superstar has perks. And I’m friends with Nat and Clint, they’ve told whoever’s on duty tonight that I’ll be here.”

Thor shifts on the bed and sighs.

“Great. That’s really great.”

He wants to feel better about it, wants to be excited Loki is there for the night. He's most at peace when he's resting in Loki's arms, after all, but today... today he kind of just wants to be alone with his increasingly dark thoughts.

They've been talking about Odin more and more in therapy and it's only now that he's starting to realize that everything he had been taught to be true about how to function, how to be a man, is wrong. And he doesn't quite know where that leaves him.

And worse, the backslide is just compounding the sadness, the bitterness and depression. 

"Why do you not want me here?" Loki asks, but he doesn’t sound defensive. 

"I'm bad company," Thor murmurs, tone flat, barely able to muster the energy to make himself audible. His throat hurts. "I'm sure you have better things to do than watch me lie here." 

"Nope," Loki replies lightly. "You're not getting rid of me that easily."

Thor sighs, resigning himself to having a shadow for the rest of the night. "Okay," he says finally. He wants to go home.

Thor thought after getting rid of the poison in his system, he’d be able to move forward. Thought without the drugs and the drink and the pressure of keeping up an image, things would be easier, but he’s still right where he started. He hasn’t gotten worse, he just hasn’t gotten any better either.

His father hadn’t done right by Thor by introducing him and encouraging him to do to his vices, but what excuses did Thor have after the man was long gone? He’d continued in Odin’s footsteps - Hela was absolutely right about what she’d told him that time they fought... he’s exactly like his father

A disappointment til’ the end - the only difference is, Thor is rotting away in a psychiatric ward.

The only difference is, where Odin had managed to successfully burn down the bridges to him and Hela, Thor had failed.

The only difference is, Odin had succeeded in dying, Thor did not.

It’s not like he wants to die, there’s an undercurrent of embarrassment now even thinking about it because he’s already fucked it up three times, but sometimes (well... all the time) Thor thinks about how much better everyone’s lives would be if he were out of the picture.

“What’s on your mind?” Loki asks when the man saddles up next to him on the bed, a book on his lap,

“Nothing pleasant.”

Loki cards his fingers through Thor's hair and Thor leans away because he hasn't taken a shower in days. Dr. Wilson had said not to beat himself up for these days, when getting out of bed seems an insurmountable obstacle, but Thor can't help it.

He's completely ruined Loki's career at this point. He knows he was the one to give Loki his start and all, but he should have just let Loki succeed without dragging his own ego and his own issues into it.

He should let Loki go back to Stark. 

"I don't feel like talking," he says, and it's true. His throat hurts. His chest and his stomach hurt. Everything feels heavy and devoid of color or joy.

He hasn't written a word in over a week now. He should have been better by now. He should have been able to go home by now. He should have.... he shouldn't have failed.

“Alright. We don’t need to talk,” Loki says gently.

That’s another thing about this entire situation that makes Thor bristle. Everyone is treating him like he’s one word away from breaking, one harsh tone away from killing himself again. He wants to scream and yell and be angry at everyone for it. He wants to fight Loki especially, for having kid gloves on whenever he handles Thor, but the weariness wins out.

It always wins out.

“I’m tired,” Thor admits. His lips are cracked and dry, his mouth feels parched too, and everything feels so fucking dumbed down. Slow.

“I know, baby.”

Thor closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath, entire body deflating with the exhale.

Even that feels like it takes too much effort.

\- - - - - -

“He isn’t up for visitors today,” the nurse on duty tells Loki a week later, and Loki stares him down. He looks fresh out of an internship.

“What do you mean, he isn’t up for a visit?”

“That’s what he requested with the staff earlier. I could go ask him again if he’s changed his mind?”

Loki thins his lips, turning to look at Hela who’d just arrived an hour earlier exactly for this very purpose, and now Thor is refusing visitors. He’s going to have to need a word with Wilson later. Surely this voluntary isolation is bad for Thor, and Loki knows Wilson will agree - the staff are pretty fickle though.

“Could you do that? And if Dr. Wilson is in, I’d like to have a word too.”

The nurse shrugs and does as he’s requested, Loki heading back to where Hela is lazily browsing through a magazine.

“Can you believe the shit they put in these things recently? I’ve heard some of these people sing and play up close and personal through collabs, they don’t have an inch of talent.”

Loki sits beside her and glances over at the magazine. "Well, the real talent has been stuck here for the past few months," he comments, picking up another magazine to leaf through, to take his mind off his annoyance with the staff.

There's a little blurb about Thor in here, speculating when or if he'll ever perform again. Speculating when or if he'll ever get his act together. Loki is starting to wonder too. 

After what feels like an eternity, Wilson emerges to talk to them. "Hey, sorry to keep you waiting," he apologizes to them both. 

"Why doesn't Thor want visitors?" Loki demands, setting the magazine aside and standing. "He's never turned us away before." Well, he's never turned Loki away.

He knows Hela hasn't gotten off quite as lightly, but she's Thor's sister.

It's a little different.

Wilson sighs. "Remember I told you to expect some difficult times?" he prompts. "This is one of them. He still isn't willing to see anyone, and he's been... combative... all day. It might be best if you try again tomorrow."

Loki’s face pulls into a concerned frown at that, because ‘combative’ is something Thor hasn’t been since that incident where he made Loki’s nose bleed with his elbow.

“Did something happen?”

Wilson sighs again, rubbing the back of his neck. Loki knows he isn’t going to like the answer.

“An orderly found a pack of cigarettes and two cans of beer in his room, no idea yet where he could’ve gotten those, but we’re looking into it. He got defensive and started a fight when we went to confiscate it.”

Loki feels a rush of dread that turns into anger in the blink of an eye, and he’s rounding on Wilson so fast he himself is surprised. Sam doesn’t look the least bit fazed though.

“You found what?! How could you have let this happen?! He’s been clean for months!”

“And he’s still clean, cans weren’t opened, neither was the pack.”

“How the fuck can you know whether he’d already had some, huh?! All this time! Maybe that’s why he isn’t getting any better! Dry drunk syndrome my ass!” Loki is heaving by the time his tirade is over, and Hela is by his side, her talon-like grip on his arm grounding him slightly. “How can you be sure?”

If Wilson is offended, he doesn’t say it, or look it.

“We do drug and alcohol tests randomly, Loki. He would’ve been caught a long time ago if this has been going on for a while. As it is, like I said, we're doing an investigation. I’m just as disappointed in my staff and the integrity of the hospital as you are, believe me. We will get to the bottom of this.”

Loki is absolutely fuming now, unable to think past the rage making his vision blotchy. This place was supposed to be SAFE for Thor! And Thor! He was supposed to be making an effort! He HAD been making an effort! 

"What changed?" he demands. "He was doing better!" He takes in a deep, rattling breath, trying to calm himself. Hela's fingernails remain embedded in his arm. 

"As I've said, it's a process. There are ups and downs." 

"This is pretty fucking far down," Loki snaps. "Let me talk to him."

He wants to know what Thor was thinking. Because if he will go so far to get alcohol in the fucking psych ward, after months and months of sobriety, what hope will there be once he gets released?

"No," Wilson says. "You're angry, and that will only escalate the situation. Go home. Come back tomorrow."

Loki is about to start yelling at the man again, but a tug on his arm brings his attention to Hela. There’s fire in her eyes too, but unlike Loki’s own, it doesn’t burn hot. The look makes a shiver run down his spine.

“I’m sure Dr. Wilson will keep his word,” she says evenly, “come along, Loki.”

“You can’t be-“

The look Hela gives him could freeze hell over, and Loki doesn’t know how Wilson is still even standing there looking perfectly fine. Loki grits his teeth and forces himself to put a lid on his anger lest he start a scene and get banned for a week or something.

He turns away and stalks out of the lobby to the front entrance, Hela staying for a couple of minutes to talk to Sam before she’s right there with him. She looks expectant, arms crossed in front of her chest, expression unreadable.

“Well, let’s have it then.”

“What was he THINKING?! He’s been doing so well! And where’d he even fucking get it! What did he trade in for it!?” Loki growls, “FUCK!”

“Are you done?”

“How are you so fucking calm? Don’t you give a shit about his progress or was that just for show after he almost fucking killed himself?”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, Loki clams up, wishing he could take them back. Hela doesn’t show any emotion besides bored disinterest, but he knows the older woman probably wants to stab him. Hospital’s right here, anyways.

“What are you really mad about? Is it really his backslide? Because he’s going to have a ton of those. Or is it because he turned you away? Because again, there’s going to be more of those too. Or is it something else entirely?”

Loki bites his tongue, scrubs at his face, then slumps, “I just... I thought it’d be enough. I gave up everything to be with him, to support him. Shouldn’t that make him..? I don’t know. I don’t know, I guess I was expecting something to change by now, but he just went ahead and fucking got himself some booze and who knows what else he’s capable of getting later on.”

“He didn’t drink it though.”

"He would have! If they hadn't found it he would have, and then he would have gotten more, and then he would just be back where he started!" How could Hela not see this? God, this fucking family is so messed up. 

"They would have found it in the drug testing," she points out, and then her expression softens. 

"Don't you even CARE?" Loki demands again, regretting it immediately when Hela's eyes flash. 

"Do not mistake me," she says, "I care very much. But I've been doing this for Thor's entire life. I can't…” she sighs sharply. "I can't lose it every time he screws up. I would never be able to function."

Loki shoves his hand through his hair.

"I hate this," he snarls. 

"I do too," she agrees. "Come on. Let's go get something to eat." 

Loki isn't even remotely hungry, but he goes anyway.

\-------

"Are you gonna tell me why you wanted to drink?" Wilson asks, perching on the chair beside Thor's bed. 

Thor curls a little tighter in on himself, the sedative they'd stuck him with making things a little fuzzy. "Wanted a drink," he answers. 

"Mmm, that's not really good enough," Wilson replies and Thor really, really hates the man. Hates everything, really. Hates himself the most.

“Was watching TV,” Thor mumbles, because he was - and lo and behold, his Grammys blunder is still being talked about and made into sitcoms and skits and himself a fucking joke. He’d never live it down, and Loki would never live it down, and damn it, even Hela.

As long as they’re associated with him, they’ll never be taken seriously at all, let alone given the chance to reach the same level of success they did.

And then they’ll leave because nobody wants to be held back like that.

“Something show that you didn’t like?”

‘Yeah, my life,’ Thor thinks.

What he says instead is, “Something like that.”

"You know how the celebrity gossip cycle goes," Wilson points out, and Thor does and he also knows celebrities who screw up as badly and as publically as he has are basically thrown on the hot mess celebrity tire fire with Lindsay Lohan and Andy Dick. 

"Yup," Thor replies, popping the p. "It's gonna happen for the rest of my life. I'm never coming back from it."

"Plenty of people have come back from where you are," Wilson points out, but that's a lie because even if he does ever start performing again, all anyone is going to remember is him pissing himself at the Grammys and getting booed offstage in Nashville. 

Thor hunches his shoulders. "I want to go home," he says for what feels like the millionth time. 

Wilson sighs and leans back in his chair. "Thor. Focus. I can’t sign off on you leaving until I know you can handle these triggers in a healthy way."

“Yeah, I can’t sign off at all,” Thor says with a bit of heat.

Although he knows that Wilson is only doing his job, and that everyone else is just worried about him, Thor still feels a bit bitter that he isn’t allowed to make choices besides the ones he makes inside the psych ward. 

Like refusing visitors.

Thor feels a horrible gnawing start under his chest at how Loki must have taken that. Hela, he doesn’t feel too badly about, even if he acknowledges that his sister is probably hurting from his refusals too. Thor hopes neither of them take it badly - he feels awful enough about it as it is.

“Were they mad?”

He hears Wilson take a deep breath, but withholds the huge sigh it would have made. Thor knows he’s exasperating - exhausting.

“I told them to come back tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to see anyone tomorrow either.”

"You won't know that for sure until tomorrow comes," Wilson points out.

Thor scowls at the far wall. "It won't change anything," he says, the heat gone. He closes his eyes and waits until he hears Wilson leave the room. 

\-------

It's the same story the next day. Loki arrives, Hela next to him, tapping something on her phone. "Sorry," the nurse says, sounding truly apologetic and maybe even a little afraid. "He's not accepting visitors today either." 

Loki clenches his fists in frustration. "Can you ask him again?" he requests through his teeth.

The nurse gives one nod before scurrying off, and when he gets back, he’s pale-faced and goes chalk white as he approaches them. Probably because both Loki and Hela are glaring daggers at him.

“He... really doesn’t want any visitors.”

“What’d he say, specifically?” Hela says, sounding pleasant but her scowl could probably cut steel.

“Ah that... he was very adamant.”

“He told you to tell us to fuck off, didn’t he? Or something along those lines,” Loki grinds out, unable to hold his anger at the situation.

Thor is pushing them away - again - and while Loki wouldn’t let him, the stupid policy of the fucking hospital is making it so Thor can do it successfully. They’ve worked so hard on showing Thor support, showing the man that he isn’t alone anymore, and now Thor might get the same idea again because POLICY abides by the patient’s requests.

“He might have said something along those lines, yes.”

Loki huffs in frustration, “Wilson. Get me Wilson.”

“He’s with another patient at the moment... and uh... he’ll be doing rounds until lunch.”

“Then I’ll wait for fucking lunch! Tell him!”

The nurse scurries off again, clearly eager to get away from Loki's furious glare. 

Fuck. 

Fuck.

\-------

A week goes by, and Loki goes to the hospital every day and every day he is told that Thor is not accepting visitors. Wilson says he's trying to exert some form of control over his situation and to just keep coming back and one day Thor will relent. 

\-------

Thor is hungry. He's been hungry for days now, but he has stopped accepting the trays of food that get brought to him. They don't even let him pick what he eats. Why should he let them force anything on him?

He knows Loki comes every day, and Hela comes most days. He knows they sit out in the waiting room in the hopes he'll change his mind. 

He never changes his mind.

\- - - - - 

Halfway through the third week, and Loki knows the answer already before he can even ask, so he is the one who speaks first before the nurse can,

“Let me guess, he’s refusing visitors.”

The man shakes his head, looking sympathetic as he relays the message, “He’s not allowed visitors at the moment. He collapsed earlier on his way to therapy. Dr. Wilson asked me to bring you to him. He’ll explain.”

Loki feels his heart rate double, but he holds off on asking questions. Better the answers come from Wilson than anyone, and better Wilson face Loki’s wrath at this new development than the poor staff. He and Hela have been borderline harassing every single nurse that’s been on duty ever since this new ‘phase’.

When Loki is brought to Sam’s clinic, the man is there, looking through some files on his desk. Loki feels his anger ignite tenfold.

“How did this happen?”

“Before you say anything, let me say that Thor is alright, and that he’s resting,” Wilson holds up a hand, gestures to the seat in front of his desk, then raises an eyebrow at Loki until he sits.

“You told me he’ll relent.”

“He will - he would have. This just happened sooner. He hasn’t been eating properly or getting much sleep. It’s a combination of physical exhaustion with mental. We’ve got him on some light tranqs and we’ll need to put in a feeding tube until he’s better.”

Loki stares in horror at the man. "How could you have let this happen?" he demands before he can stop himself. This is supposed to be a fucking hospital. Thor is supposed to be safe here, from himself especially. 

Sam sighs as if expecting the question. "Thor is having trouble right now with feeling a lack of control about his circumstances, like we discussed," he says and Loki shifts impatiently. Yes, they had discussed that. That doesn't mean they should be letting Thor starve himself. 

"We're not in the practice of force feeding our patients. Now, Thor has a choice: eat, or get fed through the tube."

Loki scowls. He doesn't like this one bit. "I want to see him," he presses.

Sam sighs, and Loki resists the urge to snap at the man. Loki isn’t the one who fucked up looking after Thor - hell, if Loki could just transfer him now he would. 

“You know we-“

“You can’t, right. You also can’t do anything if I fucking choose to transfer him, but knowing Thor, another move is going to fuck him up even more. He needs stability, he needs... he needs reassurance.”

Wilson’s face hardens, but the look on Loki’s face must be desperate indeed because he breaks after half a minute of staring. Loki can see him, but only after Thor has been fed, either willingly or through more... intrusive means. Thor is drugged and asleep anyways, and Wilson tells him the man won’t take well to waking with Loki there - seeing him once again in a state of powerlessness.

Loki at least agrees on that point, knowing that Thor is especially sensitive about how he is viewed, and especially now when he perceives himself to be weak.

“How long until he wakes?”

“Just until lunch, and we’re going to talk to him about his options first. It’s important to let him come to decisions and be given a choice.”

"I'll wait," Loki says firmly. 

\--------

Thor wakes up groggy and disoriented to see Wilson sitting beside his bed, a tray of food on the rolling over-the-bed table. "Not hungry," he grunts at the sight of it. He's starving, but this is something he can do. Something he can put his foot down over. 

"Well, you need nutrients," Wilson says, "so I'm going to give you a few options. Your first option is to eat when you need to, which would be now, by the way. Your second option is to have someone in the room with you at meal times to ensure you get enough to eat. Your third option is to have a feeding tube inserted so we can ensure you're maintaining your weight and getting the nutrition you need." He leans forward, lacing his fingers together. "It's up to you how we handle this."

Thor stares at the man in mute fury. Those choices aren't choices at all. Either he eats, or they'll feed him. Either way, he's forced to do something. Either way, he's still stuck in this damned hospital when he just wants to curl up in his OWN bed and drink some beer - fuck, he can taste it on his tongue - and have a smoke and go to sleep for as long as it takes for this nightmare to be over.

"I don't want any of those," he snarls. 

"Thor, if you don't decide, we're going to have to default to the feeding tube," Wilson warns. 

"Fucking do it, then," Thor snaps. "I dont care."

"You've been doing so well, Thor. I don't want you to compromise your progress. I know this feels like-"

"Oh you know? You KNOW? I didn't realize you knew just how fuckin' miserable this entire experience is! I just wanted to die, damn it!" Thor yells before he can stop himself, his voice turning hoarse and devolving into a coughing fit.

"Easy, big guy - but alright, maybe I don't know exactly, but I know enough how frustrating the process is. But you have a choice to make, Thor. You can keep going on like this, or you can get better."

Thor grits his teeth as the man keeps prattling on, glaring at him in a way that would have made anyone else cower,

" Like I said, that's my choice, fucking do it. I. Don't. Care."

Wilson presses his lips together, and then nods. "Okay. We'll insert the tube. It won't take very long and we'll put you out for it so you won't feel a thing."

"That's all I was trying to do in the first place," Thor sighs. 

\-------

Loki paces back and forth across the waiting room for nearly two hours after lunchtime has officially ended before Wilson re-emerges. "Well?" he demands immediately.

Wilson looks grave. "He chose to have the feeding tube placed," he says tightly. "Or rather, he chose not to choose, which forced our hand."

Loki feels his heart drop to the pit of his stomach. "What does that mean?" he asks tightly. 

"It means Thor has stalled in his recovery and it might take a little while to get going again," Wilson admits.

“Can I see him?” Loki asks again, and Sam finally, finally agrees to let him.

Thor is still in the same room and nothing has changed about it, he still follows the same schedule for the week, but the man himself looks taken down a few notches too many. Loki walks over and just takes the other’s hand, giving it a squeeze and tightening his grip when Thor tries to pull away.

“Hey.”

“Didn’t want visitors.”

Loki’s throat closes up at the hoarseness of Thor’s voice, seeming as though he’s been screaming, or like he hasn’t used it at all, or maybe like he’s been crying. The image of Thor spending nights here alone and hurting makes Loki’s eyes burn a little bit.

“I know. You’ve been turning me away for a couple of weeks now. I’ve missed you a lot,” Loki tells him, the dark bruises under Thor’s eyes and his overall appearance tells Loki just how much he’d slid back in his recovery, “would it be dumb of me to ask how you’re doing?”

“Little bit.”

“Okay,” Loki mumbles, falling silent. He doesn’t have the words to make Thor feel better.

"Wanna see it?" Thor asks suddenly, lifting up the hem of his t-shirt to show off the port now inserted in the upper left portion of his abdomen. There's gauze taped around it and the edges look sore. 

"Does it hurt?" Loki asks, taking the gesture as an effort on Thor's part to make conversation.

Thor shrugs. "I was out for it. Just kind of aches now." He looks down at it. "If they just let me eat what I wanted -"

"What did you want?" Loki asks. Nobody had mentioned it being a menu issue. 

"Pizza. Chinese food. Burgers. Tacos. All they want me to have is steamed chicken and shit." He pouts and it would be endearing if he didn't look half starved.

"That's a super childish reason to go on a hunger strike," Loki says before he can stop himself. He regrets it because he knows that's just Thor's surface level excuse for his behavior. 

"Not the first time I've been called childish," Thor replies.

Loki keeps silent, reaching over to trace the edges surrounding the little nub lightly. It looks uncomfortable, and the images Loki has in his head about what’s going on beneath the surface aren’t very pleasant.

Just like he imagines the things happening in Thor’s head must not be very pleasant. 

“They’re going to keep it on you for a while until you start eating.”

“Gonna be forever then.”

Loki grits his teeth, frustration warring with concern, ultimately ending with him numb. It isn’t like he hasn’t faced Thor’s brand of stubbornness on a daily basis, even before he was hospitalized. The added emotions from being forced not to be able to see Thor for weeks now has made everything much, much harder though.

“Are you mad at me?” Thor asks softly, Loki all but deflates.

“Not at you.”

“Who are you mad at then?”

Loki snorts, “Mostly everyone else, myself and Hela included.”

"Why are you mad at yourself?" Thor asks, sincerely. "You're not the one who got me stuck here." 

Loki chews on his lip for a moment. "I am," he says finally. "I left you alone and I knew you weren't doing well. Hela too." They'd abandoned Thor, essentially, and though Loki knows he’d had good reason to keep his distance for a while, he can’t help the guilt. 

"I fucked you over," Thor replies with a shrug. "I humiliated you, and myself, over and over. I would have left too." 

Except Loki doubts that. Thor is nothing if not loyal. "I just - I hate seeing you like this, almost as much as I hated seeing you so drunk all the time." This seems like barely any kind of improvement. 

"I miss beer," Thor says softly. 

"So I've heard. What were you thinking?" 

"That I wanted a beer and a fucking cigarette, is that so much to ask?" Thor snaps back, his temper obviously fraying.

"When you're in the psych ward for alcoholism, yeah!"

“Who put me here, huh?! Who put me here?!”

Loki feels his mouth shut, quickly dropping Thor’s hand and settling his own on his lap.

“So much for ‘you’re not the one who got me stuck here’ huh?” Loki mumbles then, and neither of them say anything until an orderly comes in to clean up and take out the garbage.

Loki can’t help but think it’s unfair. He hasn’t even processed through his own shit; Thor’s suicide attempt being the frontrunner and the star of most of his nightmares - the highlight of it being Thor hanging and swinging and-

“Why are you here, Loki? What are you still doing here?”

At that, Loki snaps, “Take a guess! Maybe I’m in it for myself! Maybe I’m in it because I like seeing you like this! Or I don’t know, maybe you think I’m in it for the fun?!”

Loki stands, fists clenched, and starts pacing. He rubs his face hard enough to hurt to get rid of the heat he can feel building in his eyes. Loki will not cry in front of Thor again. 

“Nobody’s asking you to stay.”

Loki fumes.

“You... you dense, stubborn, incorrigible- UGH!” Loki hisses, stalking over and glaring down at Thor, who’d sat up and is staring defiantly back. At least there’s fire in his eyes like this.

“Idiot,” Loki growls, putting a knee on the bed and kissing Thor hard, “bull-headed oaf.”

Thor stiffens as if surprised but doesn't pull away and eventually relaxes a bit against Loki's lips, kissing back. It’s desperate and sloppy, their teeth clacking together on more than one occasion, but by god has Loki missed this. When they pull away, there are tears in his eyes.

"You shouldn't be here," Thor breathes. "I've already made things bad for you, I don't..."

"Shut up and listen to me," Loki demands, wanting to clear this up once and for all. "I'm not going anywhere. I love you, you stupid man. I want to be here for you. I'm here because I care more about you than my career. Or anything else. You - fuck, Thor. What else do you need to hear?" 

Thor blinks at him. "I hate it here," he admits, though it's hardly much of an admission. "I'm angry I have to stay. I'm angry at you for making me stay here."

"It's because I care about you," Loki answers, softly but loud enough to ensure Thor hears him. "I want you to be well, Thor. So we can be together again." He lowers his head. "And we can’t be, if you can't make the effort." 

Thor glances down at the gastric port. "I don't know if I can anymore," he says sadly, "so you may as well cut me loose."

Loki takes hold of Thor’s face then, hands on either side of his cheek, forcing the man to look up.

“I already cut you loose,” Loki says gravely when Thor still doesn’t look at his eyes, “from that fucking noose you made. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

The man’s blue eyes lift, and all the negativity in there make them look duller than the bright cerulean they should be.

“I’m not leaving you, and I’m not giving up on you... even if you want to give up on yourself. I’ll be here, and I’ll remind you every day. You can get better. You will.”

Loki wishes he could instill Thor with some of the conviction his words convey, with some of his own strength. Loki hates it that the demons Thor is fighting aren’t tangible, that he can’t fight them himself to save Thor the trouble and the heartache. This is the least he can do - the very least.

“I don’t care how long it’ll take, because I’m in this with you for life. I’ll keep coming back and I’ll wait even if you don’t want to see me, and when you do get better, we’ll get you out of this place. We’ll go on dates and travel everywhere, write music and put it out there without a care of whether people will like it or not, as long as we both do. We’ll be that disgustingly sweet and sappy couple, and then we’ll get married and Hela will be our bridesmaid and groomsman. Then we’ll buy a house with a beachfront or a cabin in the woods, and we’ll get a dog, and we’ll grow old and wrinkly and you’ll write songs about liver spots and wrinkles for me, and I’ll write songs about how you’re going bald.”

Thor barks out a surprised laugh at that. "Seriously?" he asks, shaking his head. "You're so fucking naive. You think we're gonna have a happy ending?" 

Loki stares hard at him. "Yes, I do," he says firmly. He has to believe that, because otherwise he's going to bolt again. He has to believe if Thor can just get through this, they'll be able to have everything- the dog and the house and happiness. 

"That's nice. That's a nice thought," Thor says. "I - I want it, I really do, but I know I can't get there. I've tried. I'm tired, Loki. I'm tired of this."

"I know."

"I just want a beer."

"I can get you a soda," Loki suggests.

Thor starts chuckling again, then laughing a little hysterically, “Maybe you should be the one in this fucking bed. You’re... you... Loki, this is fucking insane.”

“No, it’s not. And I’d appreciate it if you stop turning me away before I can even get in the room to see you.”

Loki pecks him again, then straightens and sits on the chair. “I’m going to come by tomorrow and learn how to do the feeding myself, and you’re going to let me.”

“Like hell.”

Loki raises an eyebrow, “I’ll punch Wilson or any nurse who tries to stop me.”

Thor throws his head back and laughs again, “You really have lost it.”

\- - - - - -

Thor doesn’t reject visitors the next day, but he does forbid Loki from being the one to feed him through the tube. It’s embarrassing, and Thor feels a bit iffy about it.

Besides, it isn’t like this is going to be permanent. Just until he’s healthy again, right? And then Thor will make it so it won’t happen again.

He’ll show them.

If only out of spite, but he’ll show them.

It isn't so much that he wants to change. The moment he gets out of here, hes getting a fucking beer and smoking a fucking cigarette. But in order to do that, hes got to get out of here. 

Which means he needs to play along. He certainly doesn't feel like backtracking on his defiant insistence on the gastric tube, but he can work on the rest of it.

He can cooperate. He can play nice. Fake it until you make it, was the first half of Odin's constant advice to him. The rest of it went something like, if you can't fake it, drink until you can. 

Well.

Thor can fake it just fine. 

He's been faking it for years.

He just needs to do it sober now.

\-----------------


	11. Baby, We're Really in Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA "There's Nothing Wrong With Me That Wedding Bells Won't Cure"
> 
> Thor makes strides towards progress, not entirely for himself.

A month passes and Thor’s had the tube removed after two weeks on it. All things considered, Thor thinks he did pretty well about not letting anyone boss him around with regards to that.

At least he managed to keep Loki away from the task of tube feeding him.

“How are we today?”

Thor leans back against the lounger in Dr. Wilson’s clinic, settling comfortably against the lush pillows. 

“I’ve been better,” Thor tells him, the words slipping past his lips. It’s the truth too. He’d learned a while ago already that the most convincing lies are partly true. “But I feel better than when I had that thing in me. More in control.”

Wilson leans back in his chair. "Why do you think it's so important for you to have that kind of control over things?" he asks.

Thor stares at him, trying to decide how much to say to make it seem like he's playing along without actually having to... ugh, think about things. "Why do you think?" he asks. 

"It's not about what I think," Wilson says simply.

"How much control do you think I had in my life?" Thor offers. "If I wasn't doing what my Dad said, I was doing what Hela and the label said."

"But you have a reputation for being rebellious."

Thor snorts. "Because I don't LIKE having other people telling me how to live my life."

"Even when they have your best interests in mind? When you're not able to make those decisions for yourself?"

"YES!" Thor bellows, springing to his feet. "I hate it!"

“So if given the chance to decide for yourself, what would be the first thing you’d do after you get out of here?”

Thor snarls at Wilson, “I’d make damn sure I ain’t ever going back, then I’m going to have a goddamn drink.”

Wilson stares at him as though his point has been proven, and Thor certainly didn’t do himself any favors telling the man he’s going to get a drink. He mentally backtracks, physically, he sits himself back down on the couch.

“Tell me truthfully, do you really not see anything wrong with what you just said, Thor?”

“I... of course I do. I just. I was angry. I’m not actually going to, you know.”

“But you’ve thought it. You’ve attempted it even here. What’s the thing that stops you from actually following through with having a drink?”

That, at least, Thor can answer honestly. "I don't want to stay here longer than I have to, and I don't want to come back. And... I don't want to disappoint Loki."

He really doesn’t. He knows once he's out, he's going to end up disappointing everyone again eventually, but at least it will be on his own damn terms. But for now, until he fucks up, he wants to make Loki happy. Or at least let him worry a little less than usual. 

"I'm not hearing anything about not drinking for your own health and well-being," Wilson points out. 

Thor rolls his eyes. "I'd rather be drunk, that's all."

Wilson eyes him. He doesn't like that look one bit. "Why do you drink, Thor?" 

Thor isn't entirely certain anyone has ever asked him that before.

Thor takes a moment to think about what excuse he could give the man, then finds himself truly wondering the true answer to that question.

Why does he drink?

Why does anybody drink?

It makes him feel good. Because it helps him pretend.

Because it’s been going on for so long that it’s all he’s ever known, the only constant. It’s like beer to Thor is water to your average person.

Because without it, the whole image he’d built up in forever would be ruined.

Because his father made him when he was younger, and when Thor refused, he’d get a beating instead. Better to be Odin’s drinking buddy than his punching bag.

“Because I like it,” Thor says instead.

"What do you like about it?" Wilson pushes, and why doesn’t the man ever just let Thor off the hook with a simple, true answer? 

"Because it feels good."

"What feels good about it?"

"I don't know, it just does." 

"Even when you're blacking out and losing control of your bodily functions?" Oh, bullshit, Wilson has no fucking right to bring THAT up. 

"Yes," he snaps, shutting down a bit now. "I've been drinking since I was twelve and I'm not planning to stop 'til I'm dead."

For once that is the absolute truth.

“And where would that leave everyone else?”

Thor doesn’t answer. It would leave everyone else one less mouth to feed, one less burden to bear, one less headache to endure. Why can’t the bastard understand that? Why can’t Hela? Why can’t Loki? They were doing just fucking fine when Thor was was drunk out of his mind before Passages.

They didn’t even bother when Thor got sober that time, their lives better.

Now, just because Thor tried to kill himself, they’re all over him.

“Thor?”

“Why the fuck does it matter? They’ll move on.”

"They care about you," Wilson says, and what the fuck does he know? He wasn't the one to be alone and abandoned over and over again. 

"They've done it before," Thor points out. "Lots of times."

"Do you think it might have been your behavior that pushed them away?" 

Thor bristles. "Oh, so it's my fault now?" he demands furiously. "I wish they would have just stayed away." 

"You don't mean that, otherwise it wouldn't upset you so much," Wilson points out and Thor doesn't want to play this game anymore.

“I think we’re done now,” Thor says, putting an end to it by turning away. He knows it probably looks extremely childish, but he doesn’t give a fuck - the man probably looks down on him enough as it is, “can I go now?”

Thor can practically feel Wilson continue that stare of his, the one that raises his hackles and makes him want to maybe punch the man.

“Why don’t we make that resentment your assignment to write on for a while, and we can forgo our next two sessions as long as you work on it?”

Thor nods. He won’t do it, but he wants to go back to his room now.

“Alright. You can go.”

\- - - - - - 

Loki writes a song for Thor, despite knowing its part of the man’s frustrations.

There hasn’t been any new developments at all with regards to Thor. In fact, it almost seems as if he’s regressed to the point where he’s being obtusely dismissive of Loki’s own plights and disregards anything Loki says. It’s extremely tiring.

So much so that Loki considers just giving in to Thor’s requests and bringing him home. Except, Loki doesn’t trust himself with Thor’s well-being. Loki doesn’t trust Thor with Thor’s well-being.

And for all his words about not letting Thor go, Loki misses the life on the road and entertaining, misses performing. Misses making music.

So he does.

\-------

"Get that out of here," Thor grumbles when he sees Loki's guitar case. It's actually Thor's guitar, and Thor's guitar case, but that almost makes it worse because now Loki's just purposely rubbing it in.

Thor still can't sing. He can, sort of, for about half a song but then his voice crumbles into a hoarse croak and he can't continue. Wilson had suggested it might be psychosomatic, since he can talk just fine now, but Thor had shot down that suggestion pretty quickly. 

He doesn't need anything else wrong in his head. 

"I just wanted to show you what I've been working on," Loki replies calmly. He hates how calm and collected everyone is around him these days. It's as if they've all cooled on him, and they're just waiting for him to... something.

Die, maybe, so he's not a burden on them anymore. 

Thor rolls over in bed, giving Loki his back. "I don't want to hear it," he says, even though he always does love Loki's songs. Right now it feels too much like a punch in the gut. 

"Well, I need to play it for you," Loki counters.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Thor grinds out when he hears the clasps being undone, hears the thrum when Loki plays the strings open and the twangs as the man tunes it better. He sits up and glares in warning, “Loki.”

“I just want you to listen. I wrote it last night.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

Loki frowns, then begins a plucking pattern that’s new, and Thor loses his grip on his anger. Wilson had come along and given him a reminder to work on his assigned writing task, and now here is one of the very sore points of it being laid out for him.

Thor jumps from his bed so fast that Loki doesn’t have even a second to react as Thor grabs him by the collar and yells at his face,

“Are you fucking deaf?! I said I don’t want to hear it so maybe don’t goddamn force it down my throat!” Thor throws Loki back against the chair, “Is it so hard to accept that maybe your fucking songs are hard to fucking swallow?! Hearing one pushed me over the goddamn edge and made me wanna hang myself so maybe give it a break!”

Loki pales, and he looks very much like Thor had just ripped his heart out, then silently packs the guitar away and apologizes before excusing himself to the bathroom.

When Thor calms down enough to think, he kicks himself for being an asshole.

Again.

He really is a fucking monster, isn’t he?

\-------

Loki hunches in the stall, struggling to calm his breathing. Fuck, how could he have been so stupid? He could have played the damn song for literally anyone. He didn't have to bring Thor's own guitar here, insist Thor listen when all his other songs about Thor have been... less than flattering. 

Of course Thor wouldn't want to hear it. 

Fuck.

He'd just wanted to share music again. It's one of the things he misses most about Thor, about him being here, about him being so sick that he can't even LISTEN to music without breaking down. 

Loki swipes at his eyes and takes a few shakey breathes. He has to make this better. 

He re-enters Thor's room a little while later to find Thor scribbling furiously in a notebook. He doesn't ask what the man is writing, just sits silently back in the chair, hands folded in his lap. 

"I'm sorry. That was insensitive," he says.

"Sure fucking was," Thor replies without looking up.

Loki takes it, like he takes everything else these days, in silence. There really isn’t much he can say if Thor doesn’t want to accept his apologies, though the way it feels like rejection hurts more than he cares to admit.

“Anything I can do to make up for it?”

“Yeah. Get me out of here. Or get me a fucking beer. Or get out.”

“Thor...”

“No? Okay. Just get the fuck out.”

\- - - - - -

“No Loki today, huh? Guess he ran to you with his tail between his legs and told you all about how mean and selfish I’ve been to him?” Thor throws out casually as he thinks about what else to write on his little homework. 

Though he doesn’t want to openly admit it, writing them down has been... cathartic. When Thor hears no response after a couple of seconds, he looks up at Hela, who is studying him. They’re always fucking staring at him waiting for the next big blunder.

“What?”

“You’re mad.”

“Oh wow, what gave it away?”

Hela’s expression hardens, lips thinning, eyes narrowing. “Call it a sister’s intuition. Spill.”

Thor stares at her venomously for a moment. What does she care why he's upset anyway? Nobody actually cares WHY, they just want him to stop acting like this. Well, he would if they would just let him out.

“He wanted to play me a song he wrote," Thor says and it sounds so STUPID to his own ears Fuck. Why is he like this? "And he took MY goddamn guitar from MY house!"

Hela eyes him. "Okay," she says, "but what actually upset you so much?"

"He only ever writes about how much I suck. I didn't want to hear it." 

"And?"

"And it's not like I would be able to sing with him anyway," he continues. 

"You're sad," she comments and Thor bristles.

"I'm not sad, I'm pissed off! I lost my career! Lost my voice-" Hela is tapping something on her phone - "You're not even listening!"

"I am," Hela replies, and hands Thor her phone. It's got a video pulled up.

Thor stares at it and she reaches over and presses play. It's a behind the scenes video from one of his music videos, earlier in his career. He watches himself smiling and hamming it up for the camera, looking so much happier than he is right now.

"Why are you showing me this?" he asks. It feels like she's just rubbing it in even more. 

"Because this is the Thor I miss," she says. "Not the celebrity. I miss my little brother."

“I miss how much of a dork he is, and how easy his smiles are, and how much he loves his life, how easily he gives his heart to the people close to him,” Hela says, swiping to another video she’s got on her phone and playing that one as well, “don’t get me wrong, I love my brother even now. I’ll take my brother in any way, shape, or form I can have him. I’d like to help bring him back to being this happy though.”

Thor hands her the phone back and looks away, “You done?”

“Yeah.”

“You talk too much,” Thor mumbles, scowling again as he opens up his notebook to write down another thing he resents.

“For what it’s worth, Loki didn’t write anything bad. I hope you’ll have a listen when you feel like it.”

Thor huffs noncommittally, pen scratching on the surface of the paper.

“Here. That’s the best contraband I could get you. And Loki mentioned you wanted some real food around here, so it’s him you should thank when he comes by again in a couple of days.”

“Why’d he not come today then? If this is his way of saying sorry, it’s a shitty fucking way.”

Hela snorts, “I told him to stay home. I wanted today with you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Eat your food, little brother.”

Thor finally looks up and sees that she's holding a bag from Burger King. Oh, sweet heavenly fast food. It's been ages. He wants to stay mad, he wants to keep throwing bitter barbs at her, but oh, he also wants whatever is in that bag. "Gimme," he says, setting his notebook aside and presenting grabby hands towards her. 

She hands him the bag and he tucks into it as fast as he can, practically inhaling the two cheeseburgers and fries. It's the best thing he's eaten in MONTHS. Hela sits there watching him, a soft smile on her face.

\-------

Hela hadn't been lying about wanting some one on one time with Thor. It feels like it's been years since it's just been the two of them alone, with Thor sober. It probably had been years. 

She had found the videos going through some old files the previous night and had managed to cry hard enough to burst a blood vessel in her cheek, carefully covered with makeup today. Luckily, growing up with Odin had given her plenty of practice in covering bruises with concealer.

She hadn't expected Thor to be anything besides bratty and he hasn't disappointed, though watching him eat with unbridled glee reopens that pit in her stomach. Her brother is still in there somewhere. She knows he is.

After the little offering, Thor is content to play nice, and Hela is more than happy to indulge herself in this short few hours of peace. She knows he won’t be like this the next time she comes over, even if it’s with another bribe of greasy food. Thor is difficult like that.

She stays with him well until the later hours of the afternoon just watching TV, or some thing or the other on Hela’s phone that they both snort derisively at, or simply reminiscing the less fucked up parts of their childhood.

“Remember that song we made about the cold turkey?” Thor says with a snicker, “Jesus. I remember putting some slices in your Christmas stocking and how mad you were, and you got mad at dad because you thought he was drunk as fuck and did it.”

“He would have, sooner or later. We sang that song for weeks.”

“We were so dumb,” Thor says as he sips from his slurpee - for which he’d called Hela a goddess, because how the fuck did she convince a staff to go on a run for her? 

“We were. No regrets, though. Anyways, while I’d hate to cut this short, it’s getting late, little brother. Walk me to the lobby?” Hela requests, and Thor, still in a good mood from the spoiling Hela had just showered him with, agrees.

When they get there, Hela hugs Thor across the shoulders tightly, Thor returning it and lifting her a bit, laughing when she hits his arm. He smells like the fucking hospital, she thinks - and makes a mental note to bring him some nicer smelling bathroom products.

When they pull away, Thor looks rather uncertain, as though he can’t believe he just had a good day. Hela cups his face and presses a kiss to his forehead, like she always used to when they were really young.

“Thank you for today, Thor. I’ll come visit again soon. I love you.”

“Love you,” Thor mumbles back, the uncertainty creeping even into the tone of his voice. He kisses her cheek, then tells the guard to fetch her a cab before heading back inside.

Hela makes a promise to herself to fully step into the role she’d neglected.

\-------

"So how did we do with our assignment?" Wilson asks two days later. Thor hasn't seen Loki again, but Hela is supposed to come back later today. He hopes she brings him more junk food. 

He hands over the notebook, filled to bursting with anger and resentment. And honestly? It had helped to get it out, a bit. He doesn't feel as weighed down anymore, but maybe that has to do with the fact Hela truly doesn't hate him, as much as he deserves for her to. 

Wilson leafs through it for a few moments, humming here and there, and then he hands it back to Thor. "And how does it feel to have it written down?" he asks.

"Better, I guess," Thor admits. "There was... more than I was expecting."

"I figured there would be," Wilson replies with a nod. "This is really good work, Thor. You were open and honest about stuff that I'm sure is painful for you. There's a lot about your dad in here."

"I don't want to talk about Dad." 

Wilson leans back. "How would you feel about a family session with your sister at some point?" he asks. "It might help."

Thor thinks back to Hela's visit, their slide back into easy camaraderie. Odin had taken that from them, and he is only now starting to hope that their relationship will recover. "Yeah, maybe," he says, a bit nervously.

“I can see the idea makes you anxious,” Wilson observes, and god, is Thor really THAT transparent? 

Might as well explain his side,

“Of course I am. We had a good time just two days ago, and I don’t... having therapy with her might make her hate me again.”

Wilson makes a humming noise. At least he isn’t one of those therapists that scribbles on a notepad every fucking time Thor says something. Wilson actually remembers the things Thor says without needing to write it down, and Thor finds that he appreciates that about the man. Makes him feel heard - makes him feel listened to.

“What makes you think she hated you?”

“You kidding me? She’s been cleaning my shit up since... hell, since forever,” Thor says with a gruff clearing of his throat.

“Doesn’t that imply the opposite, then? That she cares about you?”

Thor sighs.

Of course he knows that, of course he knows that she cares - it’s just a bit more complicated than how the other man is putting it, though he can admit now that Dr. Sam Wilson actually does have his best interests at heart.

“I guess I just don’t want to find out she hates me for it. For always needing to do that shit. And we had a good day.”

“You mentioned that. Hela is coming back today too, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And are you looking forward to it?” Wilson asks.

That gives Thor pause, and when he answers, he finds that he’s sincere, and he’s got a small smile on his face, “Yeah. I am, actually.”

"Then go enjoy your day," Wilson says, getting up to see Thor to the door. "Think about it, okay? I think it might help."

Thor nods, and heads back to his room.

\-------

Hela arrives with another fast food bag in her hand and a smile on her face. "Hey baby brother," she welcomes, glad to see Thor out of bed, sitting at the small desk in his room, writing something. 

He lights up when he sees her - though its subtle, she can tell. He's actually happy to see her. She doesn't doubt it has something to do with the food she's brought, but it's something. 

"Here," she offers him the bag. "I hope you still like them." 

Thor pulls out the chicken mcnuggets and fries and gives her a lopsided grin that Hela had thought she would never see again. "Thanks!" he says, sincerely, and starts eating. 

"How was your day?" she asks. He seems to be in good enough spirits, better than it's been in weeks. She hadn't expected that.

Thor shrugs. "My shrink wants you to come to therapy with me one of these days," he says. "You don't have to, though."

“Do you think it’d help?” Hela asks, snatching one of his nuggets before he can protest, smirking at the look he throws her. “Don’t be greedy now, there are twenty pieces. It’s a lot of food.”

“I’m a lot of man.”

Hela pinches the soft part of his ear and Thor swats her hand away, rolling his eyes at her antics. Mostly, he just does it so he can avoid the question. He doesn’t want to talk about that yet, he doesn’t want to talk about family therapy and maybe ruining the rest of the mood of her visit.

“How’s the outside world?”

“Just the same as you remember it. People going about their lives in a mindless daze.”

Thor hesitates a little, but then his curiosity gets the better of him, “And Loki?”

“He came down with something, unfortunately. Been trying to visit but I convinced him not to. Did you know the little bastard rented out a tiny cabin near your lot? Living like a recluse and all.”

Thor laughs a little at that, because he can definitely see Loki acting that way. He pops another nugget into his mouth, then notices a gig bag at Hela’s feet - too small to be a guitar.

“You brought a uke?”

Thor looks up at Hela and is surprised by what he finds, because for the first time in a long, long, LONG while, his sister actually looks a bit... uncomfortable. No, she looks nervous. Hela is never nervous. Her being nervous makes Thor nervous, and he starts fidgeting in his seat.

“Uh... you alright?” He asks her,

Hela nods, then takes a deep breath before releasing it, “I wrote something.”

“Wrote something as in... wrote a song?” Thor asks numbly, shoving another piece of deep fried goodness into his mouth for lack of anything better to do.

“Yes. Something just for you. Finish up first though, alright? And stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

Hela rolls her eyes, “Like I’ve grown twelve horns and am stabbing people. It’s not that shocking. Besides, you made me remember about the turkey. I thought... I’d try my hand at it again when I got home.”

Thor blinks at her. He had nearly forgotten, until she'd reminded him, that Dad had wanted her to go into music too, on the performance side, not the business side. She'd refused, and never, ever played for anyone. He hasn't heard her sing in years. 

He rushes through his meal, suddenly eager to hear what she has to say. Surely it won't hurt any more than anything Loki has written about him. Besides, scathing personality comments tend to be softened by the sound of a ukulele. 

"Please," he urges her, picking up her uke - black with green trim - and checking the tuning for her. It's hard with how his ears have been lately, more ringing, less clarity, but he still manages and hands it to her. 

She swallows. "It's been a while," she says, "don't judge me too harshly." As if he has any room to judge anybody. "I thought about when we were kids. And..." She swallows and starts playing. 

"You think that you know my heart, and you probably do," she sings, "that's why I'm always with you. I could stay with you for hours in an empty room and never get bored, never have nothing to do."

“You’re my other half,  
You’re what makes me, me,  
What makes me smile when I fall down-  
And can’t get back up to my feet,”

Her strumming is a little choppy and her voice is a little shaky, but hearing her sing again feels like a punch in the stomach, and Thor clenches his fists in his lap, suddenly furious at Odin for snuffing out his sister's flame.

"If we ever got in a fight or war that would be bad cause you know all my secrets, and I know all of yours."

She sure does, and somehow she's never used any of it against him, though she could have, and deserved to.

"You and me together, we'll forget what we've been told. We'll live in our own dream world, you and me, forever, we'll forget what we've been told. We will take on the whole world...

"You're a beautiful thing. We're a beautiful thing together, even when the weather is low - we can find a rainbow high up in the sky and I’ll say don’t you cry, it’s all gonna be alright… and that's a beautiful thing."

When the song ends, Thor can't stop himself from crushing her into a massive hug. "I'm so sorry," he sobs against her shoulder.

“Nothing to apologize for, little brother.”

He feels her return the embrace just as fiercely, feels her rubbing his back and patting his head, murmuring sweet nothings into his ear. Thor feels it too, when Hela’s breaths stutter, when his sister’s shoulders start shaking, when her tears make a damp spot on his collar.

“It’s all going to be alright. It’ll be alright.” 

Thor just sobs even harder.

\- - - - - -

By the time both of them have managed to stop, Hela’s got runny makeup on that’s making her face look like it’s melting off, but she feels lighter than she has in years. 

Thor’s eyes look a little puffy, and his face is still splotched red from the emotion, but there’s a watery smile on his face too.

“You should sing more.”

“Hush, you,” Hela chides, because it’s one thing to sing for Thor, it’s another entirely to let the whole world know.

Besides, what she wrote was something personal, and while people eat that shit right up because they ‘relate’ to it, Hela doesn’t want anyone to. It’s something for Thor’s ears and his ears alone. That’s how most of her songs were even back when they were younger, and if she’d ever even write any more, it would still be only for Thor alone.

“I take it you liked it?”

“I loved it. Can I... can you make a recording of it?” Thor requests, Hela hesitates a bit,

“Those words are for you and only you.”

“No, I know. I’d just... like to listen to it again even when you aren’t here. I think... I think hearing it is going to help me through bad days.”

If Hela didn’t know any better, she’d believe Thor was trying to butter her up, but she does know better. She knows Thor’s sincerity, and Hela smiles,

“Alright. Speaking of help... you didn’t answer my question earlier. Do you think therapy with me will help?”

Thor looks away, wringing his hands together as Hela strums a couple of things on the ukulele, “Not yet. Maybe... maybe soon. Your past visits, we’ve been good. We’ve been great. I don’t want that to change.”

Hela pulls Thor’s chin between thumb and forefinger, as she usually does, “I can wait, and if you don’t ever feel like it, it’s okay too. I’ll help in any way I can.”

“I don’t deserve you,” Thor mutters, eyes downcast. Hela rubs his blond head - he could use with another shower. Which reminds her...

“Of course you do. You’re my little brother, and you can be very charming. More so when you smell good - I brought you a little bit more of home.”

He looks up at her in surprise. "Food and a song and now more?" he asks. "You're spoiling me, sister." He's also soaking up the positive attention, the connection they are carefully reforging. It's been so long since anyone has WANTED to be kind to him. Since he's been worthy of kindness. 

"I'm just tired of hugging someone who smells like hospital antiseptic," she replies teasingly, reaching into her bag for a package. 

Thor unwraps it and yelps with surprise. It's his favorite shampoo and conditioner, his favorite soap, shaving cream and aftershave. He pops open the cap of the shampoo and inhales deeply, relishing the scent of pine trees and sandalwood.

"Oh my God, thank you," he says, feeling suddenly... grateful. 

Not just for the gifts today, but for all of it. For having someone - two someones - who care enough to come back day after day even when he's awful to them. Wilson would say that the fact they're here now and hadn't been when he had been drinking should tell him how bad his habit had gotten, and Thor realizes... he agrees. 

"Hey, uh, I just, um, want to..." He stumbles over his words, trying to figure out exactly how to say what he wants to say. "I'm really grateful to you, Hela. Really. I haven't always- appreciated you. I took you for granted. Fuck, I took Loki for granted."

"A little," she replies with a shrug. "But you were also really sick for a really long time."

Thor hums, because he doesn’t know what else to say. It’s true that he’s been sick, but he knows it doesn’t excuse how he treated people.

“Hey,” Hela says, trying to catch his attention. Thor looks up at her, wringing his hands together again. “There’s nothing you could do that would change anything. We’ll get better.”

Thor smiles a little, then drags Hela to the courtyard near the psych ward. They’d been holed up in his room for most of her visits, and now all he wants is some fresh air and sunlight while there is still some sun, and to feel for even just a moment, even just minimally, that they really are back at home and better.

Hela doesn’t stay until too late this time around, telling him she needs to check up on Loki, and Thor feels a bit guilty.

“Don’t worry, he’s fine. Just caught a bit of a bug.”

“Tell him uh... tell him I miss him? And I hope he gets better soon,” Thor tells her as they walk back inside, “tell him I love him.”

“Honey, he knows that.”

\- - - - - - -

Loki groans as the sheets are pulled from over his head, scrunching up his face at the bright glare of the lights. There’s only one person who would visit him, and he groans again because Hela is going to make him eat and clean up and whatever- 

Loki likes his bed too much at the moment. Still, his brain isn’t too far gone,

“Thor?”

“He’s been doing better since my last visit. You, on the other hand...”

“I just need to sleep it off.”

Hela snorts, Loki sighs and gets up.

"He's not somebody you want to model your behavior after," she points out, picking up garbage as she follows him into the kitchen.

Loki opens the refrigerator and stares into its nearly-empty depths. He should have gone grocery shopping days ago, but he just hasn't gotten around to it. He's been - working. Sort of. 

He's been avoiding Thor. That's really what he's been doing. He admits it to himself in his darkest moments, that he fears what will happen if he just keeps going back. 

But Hela says he's doing better. Maybe - no. No. This time he wants Thor to admit he wants Loki around. It's horrible and selfish and goes against all his promises to himself and to Thor, but - 

He had hurt Thor. He doesn’t want to do it again. It's better if he stays away.

Loki sniffles as he opens some cupboards as well, bringing out a box of Cheerios. He pours some into his hand and into his mouth and finds they have long gone stale. He sets it aside on the counter and cups his hand over the faucet to drink some tap water, then splashes his face with it.

“He misses you. He loves you.”

“Did he tell you to say that?” Loki snorts as he leans his hands on the countertop, deflating.

“He did, actually. But you should know that already without being told.”

Hela sounds so matter-of-fact that Loki chuckles a little to himself, because he does know. She doesn’t need to remind him, and he certainly doesn’t need Thor to constantly tell him but... it would be nice to hear it from the man every once in a while.

“You okay?”

Loki nods, turning to face her and nodding at the doggy bag she’s got.

“That Chinese?”

“What do you take me for, Thor?”

Loki laughs and sits down heavily on the couch, the plush quilt sliding from the back of it down to bunch around his shoulders.

“I told him you were sick. I don’t like lying to my brother.”

Loki sighs, “I’m sorry. I’ll visit him tomorrow.”

"I'll come pick you up," she offers.

What else can he do but accept?

\--------

Thor is extremely pleasantly surprised to see Loki trailing behind Hela the next day. He is less pleasantly surprised to see how wan and pale Loki looks. 

"Are you feeling better?" he asks, gesturing for Loki to come sit. 

Loki shrugs, looking awkward and uncomfortable. Oh, he definitely needs to fix this.

"I'm really sorry about what I said," he tells Loki sincerely. He had admitted to Wilson that he had outright blamed Loki for his suicide attempt, and he had managed to work through the guilt of that - because he doesn’t believe it.

Not really. 

"I never meant to hurt you," Loki responds.

“I know.”

Loki and Hela sit down opposite Thor at one of the tables in the rec room. They sit in awkward silence until Hela pulls out some Twix and Snickers bars from her purse, winking at him conspiratorially. Thor suppresses the urge to snicker as he pulls one towards him.

He opens one and bites into it, moaning in delight, “Oh my god. D’you know how long it’s been since I’ve had chocolate? Their idea of dessert here is jell-o. Can you believe that?”

At his reaction, Loki grins, and Thor thinks perhaps the entire room just brightened a tad.

“What? It’s the truth! And the food too- their seasoning is probably like, one grain of salt. And don’t get me started on their bath products.”

Loki is chuckling now, shaking his head, and Hela is rolling her eyes so hard it can probably be heard by everyone else in the room.

“You’re such a diva, baby brother.”

“Yeah? Blame my sister. She was my role model,” Thor smirks, then winces as her foot connects with his shin under the table.

“Low blow. Loki, would you mind giving her side a little poke for me?”

“I’d rather not get mauled, thanks.”

Thor laughs outright at that, and it’s so easy.

It’s so, so, so easy - his eyes burn a little bit, but not for the wrong reasons this time around. He’s not naive enough to think it’ll always be this easy, Thor’s realized now how much of a forward and back tango he’s doing in terms of progress, but he’s at least got this.

Today is a good day, and he's going to hang onto it for as long as he can. 

\--------

Thor's good days continue. Loki starts coming every day again, and Hela comes as often as she can. It’s three weeks after this turn around that Thor finally decides.

"I want to do therapy with Hela," he tells Wilson one session. "And with Loki." 

He hadn't originally considered talking to Loki with a neutral third party present, but he feels like... maybe he should. There's still tremendous amounts of guilt and shame surrounding how he knows Loki must think of him. And he loves Loki. Wants to be with Loki once he's out of here, and... they need to be able to communicate in ways besides passive aggressive songwriting and yelling. 

"Good, I'm glad to hear it," Wilson says with a smile. Thor feels like maybe he's finally done the right thing.

\- - - - - -

Thor decides to have the first session with Hela and only Hela, because he’s a little afraid that Loki might not be able to take it as well as his sister can, and even then, Thor is still a little afraid that maybe Hela might not either.

Wilson tells him it’s normal to feel like that, and as he sits across them now, Thor finds he trusts the other man’s words.

“Alright. Before we start, Thor, is there anything you’d like to tell Hela?”

“Uh... yeah um... I hope whatever is said here, none of it will come between us or... or make us go back to... before.”

Hela smiles, taking his hand in quiet reassurance.

\- - - - - -

“I’m going to come home,” Thor declares after his third session with Hela. Neither Wilson or his sister seems surprised at all. “Loki and I, we’ll... I want to start this with him as well. I feel like... I’ve gotten a lot better when I can talk openly like this. And establish some healthier ways to talk.”

Wilson hums, telling him to go on,

“I want to be able to know how to talk to each other,” Thor explains. Hela, while they have had their little spats and all, and while they have grown distant when they were growing up, have an entire childhood’s worth of experiences to fall back to. They know how to communicate - know each other’s triggers and peeves. Loki, on the other hand... “I wanna live with him. I want to come home soon but not until I know how to talk to him.”

"That's a really good idea, baby brother," Hela assures him, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly. She's been so much more tender now than she had been since having to deal with him on a professional level, and it makes him so happy.

So much happier than he'd ever thought he would be.

He wants that feeling with Loki too.

\---------

Loki picks at the palm of his left hand as he waits for Thor to arrive. He had gotten here early at Wilson's request, to go over what to expect.

"Everything is confidential, and everything stays in this room. Thor wanted to be able to communicate better with you, so there might be times when you feel put on the spot or frustrated as he works through what he needs to work through."

Loki nods his understanding. He’s halfway expected this, since learning Hela had started attending sessions. "Okay," he says. "I... want to learn how to communicate with him better too. I love him."

And he does, so very much, especially now that he has gotten to know the Thor behind the persona he puts on. 

"Good. Let's get started."

Wilson asks for an orderly to go fetch Thor, and when all three of them are finally in the room together, Loki starts to fidget even more.

“Before we start can I tell Loki something first? Privately?” Thor requests, and Wilson gestures for the man to go ahead and disappears into an adjoining file room.

Thor sits next to him on the couch, and Loki smiles at him nervously when the man takes his hands. He looks infinitely healthier than he’s ever been the entire time Loki’s known him, and Loki knows he’s doing well mentally too. Thor is a completely different person sober and healthy, but in many ways, he’s also the same man Loki’s known all this time.

Loki is so lost in his own thoughts that he completely misses Thor’s movements until he feels the slide of something onto one of his fingers.

When he looks down, he spies a piece of guitar string looped and knotted together to form the ring that’s currently making its home on Loki’s finger. Loki’s eyes widen and his jaw drops a couple of inches, glancing back up at Thor in shock.

“Thor what... is this... are you-“

“Yeah. Yes. But I’m not asking. Not yet, anyways. I know neither of us are in the right place yet, neither of us are actually ready, so think of it more as a promise.”

“A... promise?” Loki echoes, staring down at it in wonder.

It’s a simple thing, and if it were anyone else maybe they’d think Thor is being cheap, giving him this worthless G-string ring, but to Loki it holds so, so much.

“Yeah, a promise. That I’ll get better, and that I’ll get out of this place and come home. And then, when we’re both in a better place, then... I’ll ask you.”

Loki feels his eyes burn as he throws his arms around the man, “Sappy oaf. I love you.”

"I love you too, superstar," Thor returns, pressing a kiss to Loki's forehead, and then his lips. After a moment in each others' arms, he straightens. "I almost don't want to do the session now," he admits. "I'd hate to ruin this."

Loki frowns a little. "Thor, the whole point is so we can be together. If it hurts a little now, isn't it worth it?"

He doesn't tell Thor that nothing that gets said in this room could possibly hurt more than finding Thor at the end of a rope. Could hurt more than seeing him passed out in his own sick, or so drunk he couldn't even speak in coherent sentences. No, whatever happens here is going to lead to something positive, so he'll deal with it.

Thor gives him a tight smile. "Of course," he says, then taps on the door to let Wilson know they're ready. 

Wilson takes in their positions - sitting close, hands clasped together, and smiles. "Thor, how would you like to start?" he asks.

\- - - - - -

It’s messy.

If there’s one thing that stands out to Thor during whole sessions with Loki, it’s that - that it’s messy. Needless to say there are a lot of unsaid hurts between them, a lot of pent up frustrations that were only half done away with through songs about each other, or forgotten and willfully buried altogether. 

Despite this though, Thor finds that it gets easier and easier to talk to Loki, and finds that the man is being more open with him too.

“I had nothing and nobody before you,” Loki tells Thor during one of their sessions, “I had nobody to come home to, a job I hated, and no confidence to actually try. And then you came along and offered me everything on a silver platter. Sometimes I think it’s unfair that you have that over me. Sometimes I think I have no right to actually come up to you and tell you what you can and can’t do.”

“Loki, I’d never-“ Thor stops himself, because he has used that particular fact against Loki. Used Loki’s own feelings of being indebted to Thor against him.

“Have you come to realize something just now, Thor?” Wilson prompts, and Thor looks at Loki with his lips downturned. 

“I... you owe me nothing. When I said those things... when I say things that hurt, it’s because I’m mad and want to hurt you too. It's... a really shitty thing to do. I’m sorry.”

Loki smiles sadly, “We’ve both been pretty shitty to each other, huh? We’ve messed up so much.”

Thor laughs, nodding in agreement. Wilson takes that moment to interject,

“All couples do. The success of relationships, however, is how willing you both are to clean up after said mess.”

\- - - - - - -

Two weeks later and Hela has gotten permission for Thor to go out for a day, and she comes to pick him up before it’s even seven in the morning.

Thor is not a morning person - and he doesn’t like unexpected disruptions to his routine. He and Wilson had both discovered that despite the lifestyle before, Thor is a creature of habit - often sticking to rigorous patterns, and when disrupted, he unravels a little bit.

“Loki’s supposed to visit by ten.”

“We’re going to surprise him at his place. Come on, little brother, I brought you some nice clothes.”

Thor pouts, looking down at his sweatpants and hoodie. They’re comfortable. And he’s still a little self conscious about his weight now, though he has lost some of the flab and gained more muscle again.

“What’s the occasion?”

Hela stares.

Thor stares back.

“You’re turning another year older today, mister. Wow. You’re really getting up there in years if you’re already starting to forget stuff like this.”

Thor blinks at her. Wait, what? It cant possibly be - "You're fucking with me," he says, chuckling to cover his sudden, unwelcome disorientation. 

"Nope," she replies pleasantly, thrusting the bundle of clothes into his hands. Thor nearly drops it, shaking himself because there's no reason to be reacting like this.

So what if it's his birthday and he doesn't actually even remember his last birthday. He actually can't remember ANY of his birthday celebrations.

Wait, yes he can. Dad had gotten drunk and locked him in the garage for being too loud practicing on the piano. Hela had let him out and given him a gift - his first guitar - and a slice of cake she had made herself. 

Thor takes a quick gasping breath at the sudden memory, something he hasn't thought about in over a decade.

"Thor?" Hela prompts. 

"Fine. Thanks, thank you, for these," Thor stammers. He's not going to ruin this, he's going to get it together, prove he's able to be back in society. "I'll just- go change."

He locks himself in the bathroom and takes a few deep, gulping breaths. "Get it together," he orders his reflection.

Thor washes his face first, then decides to take a hot shower. It soothes him a little, but he can’t deny that he’s really rattled, and he can’t hide it either. As soon as he’s out of the bathroom in the clothes Hela brought, she asks if he’s okay.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. I’m just... I don’t know. I can’t put a feeling to it yet,” Thor answers honestly as she takes his arm.

“Hm. Alright. Tell me if it gets a bit much and we’ll come back here.”

\- - - - - - -

It turns out though, that they didn’t leave early to surprise Loki at all, but to surprise Thor. When he gets to the house Hela mentioned that Loki had rented, there’s a spread of food already prepared - most of them stuff he’s been craving for the past week.

As soon as he steps inside too, Loki comes up to him and gives him a deep kiss, much to Hela’s displeasure, but Thor can only let Loki take his fill. He’s still a bit frozen, still a bit unsteady and dazed.

“Hey,” Loki greets gently, and Thor takes a deep breath. 

“Hi. Did you guys... you made all this yourself? Planned this out?”

“Mhm. And there’s a lot more in store. How’d you like it so far, birthday boy?”

Thor can tell they've both put a lot of time and effort into this, and so he tries very hard to swallow down his panic.

"It’s great!" he says with a wide smile, pulling them both into a hug at the same time. They're both looking at him and Thor gives a shaky laugh. "Really, this is - this is great."

It should be great, there's no reason for it not to be, except suddenly Thor is thinking very hard and a lot about how he's now thirty-six and another whole three years have passed that he'd spent half in a terrible stupor and the other more recent half institutionalized. 

How he's thirty-six and now really is, in fact, a washed up has been who will never sing again. He pastes the smile on his face.

"Thank you."

If either Loki or Hela notice how he’s acting, neither of them bring it up, and Thor tries to eat despite the food tasting sour in his mouth.

\- - - - - - -

Loki knows something is up when he notices how preppy Thor is, and he shares a significant look with Hela when the other man isn’t paying attention.

They both know something is up, more attuned to the sincerity Thor displays when he’s being genuine about something. This forced cheer doesn’t feel like those moments.

“So uh... so what else were we doing today?”

The question is innocent enough, if it weren’t for the hint of trepidation in the tone of Thor’s voice, in the way his hands shake. Loki knows he’s probably terrified of going out in public, which is exactly why he and Hela had chosen some private activities and that it’d just be the three of them.

“Just some family time. Just the three of us.”

An expression of relief flits across Thor's features, but even so, his quiet, private agitation doesn't seem to wane even as Hela explains all the things they had planned. 

Loki knows they can’t let the act continue. One of the biggest agreements the three of them had made, with Wilson's guidance, was to call Thor out, gently, on his overly exuberant defense mechanism. He grips Thor's arm lightly.

"Hey. What's going on?" 

Thor glances up at him, then at Hela, then back down at the plate of food in his lap. "Nothing's going on," he protests. "I'm having a really good time. Thank you."

By now Hela has joined them, sitting on Thor's other side with a hand on his shoulder.

"Come on, little brother," she says. "Spill."

Loki expects Thor to refuse. Even to get angry.

But instead, Thor deflates. "I don't know," he admits. "I haven't - I've lost a whole year. I've lost more than a year. I've lost..."

He's lost more than two decades, Loki thinks, to booze and fame, and now both are gone. It's an adjustment, and they all know that full well.

"But look how much you've gained," Hela points out. "I like this version of you much better than the fake one anyway."

“He wasn’t fake. He was just...” Thor says, a bit worked up, and Hela pats his head,

“I’m sorry, wrong words. But yeah, the you back then... he didn’t live a very fulfilling life though, did he?”

Thor sighs, nodding, but he’s still looking at his hands and his shoulders are still slumped. Loki knows that look all too well, its defeat - and it doesn’t suit Thor well, with his broad shoulders that should be proud.

“We can’t change the past, but you’ve got years ahead of you now, and the power to choose what you’re going to do with it.”

Thor laughs at Hela’s words, but he looks more at ease, “I think you’re spending too much time with me at therapy, you’re starting to sound like Wilson.”

Hela shrugs. "Maybe so, but you know what I've learned?" she asks. 

Thor shakes his head. "To start statements with feeling words?" he jokes, and it seems like he can't really help himself. It's a well worn, well practiced coping mechanism, after all. 

Hela rolls her eyes, and brushes a strand of hair away from Thor's face, tucking it behind his ear.

"I've learned that you are having a hard time being who you are instead of who you think you're supposed to be." Thor looks down at his hands, then back up at her as she continues. "I like who you are, little brother. And Loki does too. And I'd wager to guess you like who you are better than who you thought you were supposed to be." 

Thor gives a throaty chuckle. "I do like not being hungover all the time," he says after a moment, brightening now in a real way, not the fake performance way.

It's a nice change.

\------

The rest of the day is one of the best Thor has ever had. Maybe even better than his own Grammy win a few years back. Better even than meeting Loki for the first time.

Hela and Loki had planned a variety of activities, goofy games designed to make him laugh, and more garbage food than Thor thinks he could eat in a lifetime. It almost makes him forget about what's separating this from every other birthday party he's ever had. 

And that's an easy enough thought to push away.

And if Thor gets a little misty eyed when Hela brings out the cake she and Loki had made later that evening - a lumpy thing covered in glazed chocolate icing, layers sliding a little because of too much buttercream in the middle, and an attempted fancy scrawl of his name on top with one too many candles on it - as they both sing him happy birthday, well, it’s for the best reasons.

“Happy birthday, little brother,” Hela says in tandem with Loki’s,

“Happy birthday, darling,” Loki presses a kiss to his cheek, whispering in his ear, “Don’t forget to make a wish.”

Thor grins and does just that before blowing the flames out.

\- - - - - - 

They bring him back to the hospital and get a bit of a light scolding at the late hour, but a slice of cake is all it takes to appease the woman on duty. Thor has some as well that he’s allowed to keep at the nurses break room fridge. 

Thor hugs both Hela and Loki fiercely, planting sloppy kisses to both their cheeks as they greet him again and tell him to rest up, tell him they love him and that they’re going to come by again tomorrow, that they’re glad they’ve made today a good day for him.

Thor feels his heart is full to bursting by the time he lets them both go with a mumbled ‘thank you so much’ and a teary ‘take care going home, okay?’.

When he’s back in his room and on his bed, Thor cries himself to sleep - but it’s the first time that’s happened because of happiness.

Thor has long stopped believing in wishes and birthday magic, if he ever did, but hopes just this once it’ll come true.

\- - - - - - 

It does, but not until another four months later, when his meager belongings are stuffed inside a small duffel, and Wilson is giving him last ditch resources should Thor need any in case of emergencies.

“Congratulations, man. I’ll see you again on Friday, alright? Call me any time if you need to though - or any of the emergency numbers I gave you if I’m not picking up. The people I’ve listed down are some of the best, and they’ll know how to help too,” Wilson gives Thor’s arm a firm shake, patting his shoulder, “I’m really proud of you. Really happy. Good luck out there.”

Thor gives the man a spontaneous hug before climbing into the backseat of the car Hela is driving. "See you," he says, and waves out the window.

\- - - - - -


	12. Let's Turn Back the Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA "Let's Pretend that Time Has Stopped and I Didn't Go Away"
> 
> Thor and Loki live in mostly loving and professional bliss... but not forever.
> 
> (sorry)

They don't go back to Thor's old house. Loki refuses, and honestly Thor doesn't want the reminder either. He puts it on the market and moves into Loki's small cottage just short ways away. 

He knows they could be living much more luxuriously than this, that they could buy another mansion anywhere they pleased, but he likes the cozy little house. He likes not feeling like he has to live big to be taken seriously. 

They have a bedroom, and living room/dining room combination, a kitchen, a bathroom with a tub, and a room Loki has converted into a tiny recording studio. 

It fills Thor with a slight pang of grief that he won't be able to use that particular room, but he's glad to see it all the same. He can still play every instrument he picks up, who cares if it’s Loki singing the words? 

They start taking hikes in the woods around the house, something Thor had never done the entire time he's lived in the area. It's beautiful, and serene, and he spends hours at a time just looking out over the wooded hills and valleys he had never been in the right frame of mind to appreciate before. 

It’s peaceful. He thinks he could get used to peaceful.

\- - - - - - 

It's not always easy. Thor has habits, now, from nearly a year in the hospital. He keeps to a rigid schedule and any change makes him agitated and snappish. Loki tries hard not to disrupt things, and if he has to, he tries to give Thor enough warning, but sometimes it can't be helped.

Like Tony Stark coming to visit.

Thor is making a sandwich for himself when there’s a knock on the door, and Loki looks up from where he’s reading on the couch, frowning slightly. They weren’t expecting any visitors today, and Hela is supposed to be busy.

Loki gets up and opens the door to find Tony outside with a grin plastered on his face.

“Surprise!”

“Who is it?” Thor calls, and then Loki hears his footsteps as the man walks over to see for himself. Loki tenses, because this is not going to end well.

“Oh, hey! You’re here too, huh? Finally got out of treatment?”

The silence from Thor tells Loki all that he needs to know, “Tony... what are you- what is-“

“What the fuck is he doing here?”

Thor's tone is dark, his expression stormy, and Loki puts a hand on his arm quickly in an attempt to diffuse the conversation. "This might not be a good time," he warns Tony.

Tony whips off his sunglasses. "Hey. I thought you'd be glad to see an old friend."

Loki can feel Thor tensing under his hand. "You're not my friend," he says. "And you're not Loki's either, unless..." He trails off, takes a step backwards.

“Thor...” Loki intones, not liking the way Thor’s face closes off very suddenly, not liking the conclusions he’s no doubt jumping into.

Thor shakes his head, then he smiles, but it looks all wrong - distorted.

“Oh. I never - all this time, I never even considered that...” Thor starts sputtering, Loki steps towards him, hand outstretched.

Thor smacks it away. Loki can only stare, mouth hanging slightly agape.

“You’ve been seeing him behind my back all this time, haven’t you?! So what - what’s your arrangement with him this time, huh?! You did it on purpose right? At the Grammys? What is it this time?!”

“Thor, there’s nothing going on - don’t be ridiculous-“

“RIDICULOUS!?” Thor bellows, walking around the house and putting on a shirt and some socks, some shoes. Tony is just standing there looking like a deer caught in headlights. “This is exactly what happened before the shit-show at the Grammys too! You came home and we were good, and then you dragged me there despite knowing I wouldn’t be well! And now it’s happening AGAIN!”

Loki feels his stomach drop at the implication, feels the hurt bubble in his chest and up to his throat, clouding his own vision with the one goal of protecting himself,

“You’re jumping to conclusions, none of that is true. Don’t you remember that I even left his label for you?!”

“Oh, so I’m imagining things? He’s not really here?! Is that it?! You know, I bet that album you put out after you two stuck me in rehab got lots of attention you fucking fame-whore!”

Loki draws back at that, deeply stung, and when Thor brushes past him, he does nothing to stop the man. Thor shoves Tony out of his way as he heads out, and only then does Loki remember himself, scrambling towards the door.

“Where are you going?!” He calls after the man, but Thor just keeps heading deeper into the woods, “THOR!”

Fuck.

Loki puts on his own boots and a jacket, glaring a bit at Tony. “Please see yourself out,” he tells the man before going after Thor.

\-------

How could he have been so stupidly naive? How could he have been so fucking blind? Of course. It had been in front of him this whole time. It all makes sense now. 

Except it doesn’t. In the back of his mind, Thor knows he's being completely irrational. Of course Loki wouldn't - but wouldn't he? He’d latched onto Thor with almost no hesitation. What kind of person just... joins a national tour with absolutely no notice?

The kind of person who wants to be famous. Who wants to be in the spotlight. Loki has been pushing to write more songs, lately, to release a new album. 

Which means Stark is probably the one pulling the strings. Stark is the one who originally suggested the xanax prescription, though he'd phrased it as a way to wean Thor off the booze. 

Thor knows now that was a lie. It was all a lie. From the very beginning.

He hears Loki calling for him, running up to him, and Thor widens his steps, walks faster. He needs some space to breathe - needs some time alone - needs Loki to stay the fuck away.

“Thor, please!”

The man’s voice just makes Thor angrier, makes the ringing in his ears a better alternative than listening to whatever fucking explanation Loki’s got prepared.

“Stay the fuck away!”

“Thor, baby please... let’s talk,” Loki says, and Thor feels the man’s hand on his elbow, trying to stop him. He shakes Loki off roughly, “Thor... this is exactly the kind of thing we went to therapy for... we went so we’d know how we can talk better, didn’t we?”

“Fuck you. Leave me alone.”

He doesn't want to talk. He wants to get away.

"Thor, please, do you honestly think I was ever with Stark, or are you just upset about being taken by surprise?"

Thor rounds on him. "I'm upset about being taken advantage of!" he growls. How could - how could any of them? And what if Hela was part of it too? Oh, oh fuck. "You all just wanted me out of the way, didn't you?"

Tears prickle the corners of his eyes. He needs to get out of here. He needs to get away from here.

“Thor, please - that’s not true. None of us wanted you out of the way, none of us-“

Thor cuts him off, grabbing Loki’s collar and sneering down at him, “Lies. Liar. So I’m supposed to believe you just - just what?! Forgot I wasn’t in a good place?! Fucking selfish bastard, you wanted me out of the picture! All of you!”

“If that were true, we would’ve just let you DIE!” Loki yells back, tears in his own eyes now, “If that were true I’d have left you fucking HANGING! Did that even occur to you!? Have you ever thought about that?! Hela and I- I- we- fuck, Thor, we dropped everything for you! If we wanted you gone we would’ve left you hanging! Would’ve left you to rot at TriStar! Just... just listen - none of us want you gone. Please believe me... please... let’s talk.”

Loki begs, and Thor is torn. He’s torn, and this is too much, and he needs to get away. He lets Loki go and turns away to start walking again, but the man blocks his way.

“Thor... Thor baby, please... please don’t walk away now- let’s go back to the house, Thor. Come back. Come home.”

“STOP IT!” Those bellows. Loki makes to grab for his wrists again after the umpteenth time Thor has tried to pry him away, and then, before Thor can stop himself, he’s throwing a punch.

It cracks against Loki’s cheek, sends the smaller man staggering and falling onto his back. Thor feels his eyes widen a little as Loki sits up, a hand to his face, the other bracing him on the ground. He looks shocked, and a little dazed.

“You... you hit me.”

\- - - - - - 

Thor hit him. He’d hit him. Loki knows Thor had gotten physical with Hela, but he had honestly believed it had been... Thor had still been drinking, then. It had never crossed Loki's mind that he needed to worry about it for himself. 

It had never crossed his mind that Thor would take an unexpected visit from an acquaintance so badly out of context. 

His cheek throbs, and when he touches the spot there's a little give under his fingers and a new wave of pain. He spits, and a tooth comes out with the mouthful of blood. 

He looks up at Thor, staring down at him in horror. Or fury. It's hard to tell.

"You hit me," Loki repeats, staying where he is on the ground. Thor keeps staring at him. "Aren't you going to say something?" It hurts to talk, to move his jaw.

"SAY SOMETHING!" 

Thor turns tail and runs. 

FUCK!

Loki gets to his feet and starts running after the man despite the pain that twinges with every step. The man’s head start and the fact that Loki is still a bit disoriented makes him lose track of Thor in the space of a couple of heartbeats.

“THOR!” Loki yells into the quiet of the trees around him, and it’s all he can do to keep walking around aimlessly as he screams the man’s name.

He walks for hours.

\- - - - - 

It’s nearly dusk when Loki calls it quits and tries to navigate his way back home. When he gets there, the first thing he does is call Hela.

The first thing she does is scold him, then says she’s going to look for him and if Thor isn’t back by evening, they’re going to call the police.

When she hangs up, Loki stares blankly at the unfinished task Thor had left, the slices of bread on the plate, the cheese and meat left on the counter. The deep ache in his cheek tells him his face must be bruising, and a touch to it with his palm tells him it might be swelling, judging from the heat. Loki feels tears track down his cheeks, then he starts bawling in earnest.

It’s almost two in the morning before he gets any updates, and it’s a text from Hela,

\- He’s staying with me tonight. Went to see Wilson. He’s still clean. Get some rest.

It's a relief, one that Loki had not realized he had been waiting for. All that time, he had been expecting a call from the police, from the hospital, from a bar. It's a relief. 

\- gonna be hard to do with a broken cheekbone, Loki responds before turning his phone off and laying in the dark until morning.

\-------

He wakes up to a text from Hela.

\- Do you want me to keep him here for a while?

There's nothing from Thor. Loki doesn't know if it's because Thor doesn't want to talk to him or because Hela isnt allowing it. Either way, Loki feels his stomach twist into knots.

\- did he tell you what happened?

\- Yes. He realizes he was being delusional. 

\- does he remember punching me in the fucking face?

\- Yes. 

\- and?

\- And it might be best if he stays here for a couple of days. I live closer to Wilson's office. 

Loki sighs and lies back against his pillows.

He also doesn’t know whether Hela adopting Thor is for easier access to Wilson, or whether she just wants to keep him away from Loki. It’s not a pleasant thought, but the throbbing in his face and head makes pleasant thoughts fly right out.

\- ok.

\- I know you’re mad. He told me what he said to you too. You should have some time to cool down first.

\- ok.

\- Please don’t let this be the first big defining fight you two have. You both just need to calm down. Get your face checked.

\- ok.

Loki turns his phone off again and curls into the pillows, bringing the duvet over his head. He tries to sleep again, but all Loki can do instead is think over what transpired the day before and how it could have gone differently - what he could have said to convince Thor of his words. Loki thinks about the words Thor had said to him, almost twice as painful as the punch the man had thrown.

\- - - - - - -

Hela stares at her phone, at the infuriating one word replies Loki has been sending to her texts. She’s worried about him, but Thor takes priority over Loki at the moment.

Sam Wilson had called her right as she was wrapping up her meeting, arranging an interview for her client, and she’d almost had a panic attack when Wilson said Thor had come to his office unexpectedly, in a bad way.

She was afraid he’d relapsed, but honestly, this seems worse.

Thor hasn’t spoken a thing after admitting to her what had happened and what he’d done - what he’d said. Hela wants to chide him, but Thor is already beating himself up over it enough.

“He won’t be mad forever, you know... and it’s better if you reach out to him to apologize.”

Goddamn Tony fucking Stark. She’ll have words with him later.

Thor just looks at his hands and retreats further into himself.

\----

Two days later and Thor still hasn't said a word. He's not talking at therapy, either, according to Wilson. Hela hates to think that she would almost have preferred it if Thor had relapsed. At least then it would be a known quantity, something she's dealt with and knows how to handle.

This despondent silence is too much. "I know you feel guilty," she says, handing him a plate full of food, "but I really wish you would talk to me." 

Thor sets the plate aside and doesn't touch it.

Hela resists the urge to sigh. She also stops herself from shaking him and maybe slapping him back to his senses and just talk. Hela does none of those things and just watches as her baby brother slinks away, back into the guest room, back into bed, back under the covers.

She calls Loki when she’s sure Thor has fallen to a fitful sleep again.

“Yeah?”

“So is this how you’re going to handle every fight? Just ignore each other and wait for the other to make the first fucking move?” Hela knows it’s unfair, knows that Loki isn’t the one to blame, but neither of them are even trying to fix it. It’s infuriating.

“He hasn’t texted me.”

“So?”

There’s silence on the other end, he shuffling of sheets, “So, I don’t know if he wants to see me or not.”

Hela closes her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. Honestly, her younger fucking brothers - yes, both of them, because Loki is practically married to Thor already. She’s seen the sickeningly sweet makeshift ring on Loki’s finger.

“Of course he does... he feels awful. He... he hasn’t been talking to me, or to Sam. Can you come over?” Hela pleads, “I’ll pick you up, and we’ll take care of your face before we head back home. I know you didn’t get it checked.”

Silence.

“Loki?”

“Okay. Is he...?”

“He’s okay - well... not really, but he’s sleeping now. I’ll come around two, alright?” Hela says, and waits until Loki agrees.

\- - - - -

She tells Thor she’s going out, and the man only grunts from his spot at the bed. Hela gives his head a kiss before fishing her keys from where they’re hanging by the door, then heads out.

As soon as she lays her eyes on Loki, Hela feels a bit guilty for not checking up on him sooner.

There’s a large purple bruise on his cheek that nearly creeps up into the hollow of his eyes, spreading back to his jaw in softer tones.

“Shit... he really packed a lot into it huh? Have you been icing it?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll drop by a clinic. Put some clothes on and let’s go.”

Loki is reluctant, but does as he's told.

\------

As it turns out, and to absolutely no surprise to Loki, he has a fractured cheekbone, and a broken bicuspid. He's given a referral to an oral surgeon and a prescription for percocet - which he immediately throws away, because there is no way he's going to keep anything stronger than advil in the house- and then Hela drives him to her house. 

Loki has never been there before, somehow, though he's not surprised that it's a super sleek, all-glass and matte black steel monstrosity. He follows Hela through the open floor plan to one of the few closed off spaces. 

"You two are going to have a conversation," she orders, "and I'm going to get us something for dinner." She eyes Loki's face. "Something soft." 

Loki knocks gently on the door, anxiety churning in his guts. While he's glad Thor had not run off and fallen back into a bottle, he still doesn't know if he's ready to see him. 

Not sure if he's ready to forgive him. Everything he’s ever been told about leaving the moment his partner raises a hand to him is warring with how much he fucking loves Thor.

Finally, he pushes the door open. "Hey," he says softly. Thor is curled in bed, his back to the door, his blond head just barely poking out over the blankets. "Thor? Are you awake?"

If Thor is awake, he doesn’t answer.

Loki slinks inside, then sits on the edge of the bed, reaching over to brush the man’s hair from his face. He feels Thor tense when his hand makes contact, and Loki lets out a tired sigh.

If Thor doesn’t want to talk to him, Loki won’t waste his breath either. Besides, it fucking hurts to speak, and if Thor isn’t going to listen, then might as well just keep silent and spare them both the pain. In the end, he just curls up in the bed next to him, hugging him from behind.

Thor doesn’t turn, doesn’t even move his arms. He starts sobbing not five minutes into it though.

“Hey... it’s okay. We’re okay.”

"We're not," Thor manages to bite out. "I hurt you. I hurt Hela. I -" He shudders, pulling his arms up to cover his face. "I don't even know why I thought that - why I assumed."

"You were caught off guard," Loki murmurs.

"Huh?" 

"You weren't expecting a visitor," Loki repeats, louder. "Your routine got disrupted, and Tony isn't exactly a neutral person."

Thor just nods into his arms. "I hit you."

"You did. And you'd better not do it again."

Thor pulls away at that, sitting up and staring down at him. His face is a comical blend of disbelief and displeasure. The way it twists into a guilt ridden grimace when he sees Loki’s bruise is less so.

“I’m fine,” Loki tells him before Thor can start berating himself, then sits up as well. “It’s not that bad.”

Thor reaches out to gently brush his thumb against the bruise, eyes shining bright again with his tears, and Loki sighs. He’s still a bit irritable from the pain and from the fitful night of sleep he’d had the past couple of days, but his concern over Thor’s own well-being outweighs any need to lash out or get mad at the man.

Loki reaches up to twine their fingers together, “It looks worse than it is, I swear. Just... promise me we’re going to talk our problems out? Maybe we could go to Wilson again together... you really worried me when you went off like that.”

Thor looks down at their laced fingers. "I'm sorry," he says. "I - I started to go to a bar, but then I passed Sam's office so I- went there instead. I told him everything. He helped me work through why. I - it won't happen again."

Loki believes him; he sounds sincere, and absolutely heartbroken. "I'm proud of you for being able to go there instead of drinking," he says, truthful. He had honestly thought the incident would be the beginning of a relapse, but Thor had been able to make good choices in the wake of his monumentally horrible one.

"Are you ready to come home?" Loki asks after a stretch of silence. 

Thor looks up at him and nods. "Yeah. Let's go home."

“Well. Not right now - now. Hela’s still going to come back with dinner, and honestly I don’t feel like cleaning up,” Loki tells him, because he had left the house in a bit of a disarray.

At last, Thor rewards him with a smile, though it’s small and sad, “I’ll clean up when we go home tomorrow, don’t worry. To make it up to you.”

“I deserve a foot rub too, don’t you think?”

That gets him a proper smile, and a snuggle from the other man. Loki is starting to see the striking similarities between Thor and a puppy as he finds himself with an armful of the blond.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know, baby. It’s okay now.”

\-------

It stays okay, too. They go home the next morning and Thor makes good on his promises- not only does he clean the cottage from top to bottom, but he gives Loki the most heavenly foot rub he has ever experienced. 

Life starts to settle more and more. They spend their days in the studio room together, writing. Of course, frustrations sometimes boil up when Thor can’t hit a particular note, or has to stop singing halfway through a song, but they talk through them.

And soon, they have enough material for a full album. "We need a name for our label," Loki says, mostly teasingly, over dinner the night they decide to start recording what they've managed to come up with. 

"Fuck You Records," Thor suggests around a mouthful of lo mein.

Loki snorts and rubs Thor’s shin with his foot, “Mm. I’d like for you to do that to me after dinner, but for the label? Not so much.”

Thor almost chokes on his noodles, and Loki rolls his eyes. 

Neither of them are prudes, and neither of them were particularly shy when it came to their sex life - or lack thereof - before things went south. Loki has been wondering when they could try to do more physically besides just the make-out sessions they’ve been having, glorious as they are.

“W-What?” Thor says, face flushing red,

“Fuck me? You know, sex?” Loki says slowly, enjoying how Thor squirms and brightens even more. How he tries to cover it up by bringing his soda up to his lips, “Oh dear me, have you turned into a blushing virgin, my rowdy cowboy?”

Thor does, indeed, choke on his drink with that comment, coughing and sputtering a bit. Loki takes pity on him - a little bit - and moves to sit beside him, thumping his back until Thor stops coughing and wipes his eyes.

“Didn’t know you were such a shy little boy. But you were asking for it, really.”

"It's not that!" Thor manages around the coughing fit that eventually subsides enough into occasional clearing of his throat - but he does that a lot, these days. "I just don't think we've ever - we haven't, have we?" 

Loki sits back in his chair and looks at Thor, suddenly realizing what it means that Thor had been blackout drunk for the vast majority of the early parts of their relationship.

"You were never in any state to say yes and make me think you meant it," Loki explains. "We tried once," he adds. "You passed out."

Thor scowls a little at the reminder of his behavior, but manages not to plummet into self loathing, instead raising his eyes to meet Loki's. "Well, this cowboy wouldn't mind going for a ride," he says, and Loki sputters out a surprised laugh.

"Oh wow! Is that how you normally flirt? No wonder you've been single for so long!"

“Worked on you, didn’t it? Should say somethin’ more ‘bout you than me.”

Loki laughs and straddles Thor’s lap, kissing him deeply, tongue flicking out to tease Thor’s mouth open. He kisses and bites and suckles a little bit, hard enough to make Thor’s lips look a little swollen. The man’s blue eyes are also slightly hooded, and Loki can feel the beginnings of an erection pressing against his ass. He grinds down a little bit.

“Mm, why don’t you carry me to bed then, cowboy?”

Thor staggers to his feet, large hands supporting either side of Loki’s legs, and Loki holds onto him, laughing all the way.

\- - - - - 

They wake up in a tangled heap the next day, and Thor immediately hovers over him for more kisses and caresses. His touch is reverent. When the man settles on top of him, Thor’s face pressed to his neck, Loki doesn’t mind the heavy weight of him and plays with a strand of the man’s hair, curling it around his fingers.

“Thor?”

“Mm?”

“I think it’s time.”

Thor stops his idle kisses and asks time for what.

“Time to make good on your promise and ask me.”

Thor blinks down at him, and then nods, rolling off Loki and to his feet. "Hold on a second," he says, leaving the room and Loki lays back in bed wondering what on Earth Thor is up to.

He hadn't seemed surprised by request, and Loki is glad for that. Everything is finally starting to come together, and it really... it really is time.

He can hear the sound of Thor's guitar getting closer and closer and soon, Thor is back in the room, strumming, and then begins to sing,

"I've been a rolling stone all my life, flying all alone, flying blind.  
I've seen it all, I've been around, I've been lost and I've been found."

His voice is scratchy and Loki can tell he's not going as hard vocally as he normally tries to, but that means it's because he intends to get through the entire song. 

"But who I am with you is who I really want to be," Thor continues, "You're so good for me. And when I'm holding you it feels like I've got the whole world in my hands. Yeah, a better man is who I am with you." 

His eyes are shining, but his voice stays steady and Loki feels his heart swelling with affection and devotion for this sweet, complicated, talented man who has chosen him above all others.

"I've got a ways to go on this ride, but I got a hand to hold that fits just right. You make me laugh, you make me high, you make me wanna hold on tight." 

Thor kneels in front of Loki, who is still sitting on the bed. "Because of you I'm a lucky man. You're the best part of who I am." He sings the chorus one more time, his voice starting to fade to little more than a rasp. But then, he whispers, "Loki, marry me," and presents a ring. 

A real one.

Loki feels his lips pulling into a wobbly smile, says a soft ‘yes’ and allows Thor to put it on his hand and set aside his guitar before tackling him. He peppers the other’s face with kisses and has silent tears making wet trails down his cheeks, Thor has them on his own as well, but oh - they’re both grinning widely.

“I love you, cowboy.”

“I love you too, superstar.”

\- - - - - -

They decide not to rush things or get married straight away, wanting to get everything else set aside first - they still have songs to record and polish, and other things to do besides as an independent label. It means more work, and being more hands on with even the business aspect of things despite Hela’s help, but it works.

Thor has been doing infinitely better, even managing to leave the house with Loki to eat out or go grocery shopping, or just to stroll through the town. Finally, finally - it seems like everything is falling into place.

They’re having lunch with Hela at a fancy restaurant when she suggests they should do a photo shoot soon for their album cover, and Loki smiles and agrees.

“We’re really doing this, aren’t we?” Thor says quietly, hands fidgeting. He’s nervous. Anxious.

Loki feels the same way, because the songs they’ve written together are their hearts and souls poured into paper and expressed through music - it’s deeply personal and Loki doesn’t want to put it out there just yet, but... but, it’s also Thor’s story to tell, in many ways. It’s their story - all three of them. Loki smiles and takes Thor’s hand, their matching rings making him feel giddy.

“We are. We aren’t letting anyone silence you, or me. They’ll listen.”

Thor gives him a watery smile. "Okay," he says. 

\--------

Hela brings them to a farm, complete with an old beaten up pickup truck and some beautiful backdrops. "Remember the one we did for your first album with Stark?" she asks Thor, handing him his hat. 

Thor plops it on his head and tilts it towards her cheekily. "No," he replies with a bark of a laugh. "But I remember the end result." 

"Good enough," she says with a roll of her eyes.

Thor is a natural even when he isn’t swimming up to the gills in drink and drugs, his shots looking amazing and look as though he was born to do this. Loki can’t help but stare in amazement at how quickly Thor can shift his expressions, and how easy he makes it look.

It isn’t that Loki finds it difficult, but just the carefree and effortless way Thor enjoys the process is riveting.

Thor is game for anything too, whether it’s sitting inside the pickup or leaning against it, he even gets on top of the hood and does a ridiculous pose that they surely aren’t using. From there, it soon devolves to Loki climbing up as well and being just as ridiculous. 

Hela can pretend to sound exasperated all she wants, but it’s clear to Loki that none of them are all that worried about the time they’re taking.

Well, maybe their photographers are, but hey, they get paid to endure this.

“Maybe we should take some naughty shots too, so, y’know, I can have some photos to look at when I’m curled up in bed all alone for some reason,” Loki teases into Thor’s ear as they have a water break, and Thor guffaws, unable to stamp it down.

“Let’s do it- I’m game if you are. Though, Hela might need some bleach for her eyes.”

So that's how they find themselves shirtless in the bed of the truck, Thor standing, his jeans unbuttoned, Loki kneeling in front of him, hands gripping Thor's hips. 

Thor looks positively debauched with his head thrown back and his mouth partially open, running his hands through his hair and then gripping Loki's as they pantomime a blow job, much to Hela's consternation.

By the end they're both laughing and aroused and the light is waning anyway. 

"You're both unfairly attractive, you know," Hela says as she scrolls through the proofs from the day, showing off the ones she likes the best.

“That one,” Loki says as she stops Hela from scrolling. “I love that one.”

It’s a picture of Thor that’s most definitely candid, though you probably couldn’t tell from the way his eyes are gleaming and the tilt of his face towards the sun is almost too perfect. There’s a smile on his lips, and a looseness that shows even through the still. He looks positively happy, in the prime of his life and just enjoying every second of it.

“You look radiant there, cowboy,” Loki comments, his arms draped over Thor’s shoulders from behind. Loki gives the crown of the other’s head a kiss, squeezing him, “I’m so proud of you, baby.”

Thor squirms a little at the praise, then continues to sift through the photos and points out the ones he likes as well, and which ones he wants to be developed so he can keep them for his personal collection.

Loki does the same, and they almost decide on the entire album altogether.

“Hey! We haven’t gotten a shot yet with the three of us,” Thor says then, then manages to charm their photography team to unload their gear again for a couple of shots more.

When they’re done and looking at the photos, Loki can’t help but smile, and Hela’s face has settled into a soft look as well.

Thor grins, “I want that framed at our house. It’s perfect.”

It's all entirely perfect.

\------

The talk shows and tabloids are going crazy over Thor and Loki's new album. "There's nothing people like better than a good redemption arc," Hela comments to Thor the night the two men are scheduled to perform on SNL.

He's clearly nervous, clearly agitated. Not only is the press tour disrupting his routine, but being back in the public spotlight is clearly more difficult for him than he's letting on. 

He's sober, but irritable, and Hela can tell he is anxious as hell about how fast everything is moving. 

He nods jerkily and compulsively starts re-tuning his guitar until Hela puts a hand over his to still them.

"You got this," she says.

Thor looks up at her and takes deep, gulping breaths. The way he does it reminds Hela of a fish out of water, and she stands in front of him to fix up his collar. Loki comes over with a swagger, but he looks anxious as well.

Hela sighs, taking both men by their wrists. “Listen to me, both of you, you’ll do great. Remember what we talked about? This is something for the both of you to do together, an experience to share first and foremost. Alright?”

Loki gives her a small smile, but Thor... he’s still keyed up.

“Thor?”

“M’nervous. What if-“

Hela rolls her eyes as Loki kisses Thor to silence, then pats their cheeks.

“Play your hearts out.”

They're announced. They go out. They play. 

And get a standing ovation.

\--------

By the time the show is over and it's time to go back to their hotel, Loki can tell Thor is reaching a breaking point with his anxiety. 

They had done spectacularly well, but now the cheering crowd is making him tense, keeping him in a state of near-flight. Loki puts a hand on his arm and squeezes gently. "Its over, you can relax now."

Thor flashes him a tight smile. "I'm trying," he says with a nod. "I can't believe..."

"I'm really proud of you," Loki informs him, raising his head slightly to give Thor a gentle kiss on the lips. "We just need to get through the crowd outside, can you do that?"

Thor takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and nods. In an instant, Thor the man is replaced by Thor the celebrity, a loose smile on his face and a twinkle in his eyes. 

He drapes his arm around Loki and together they head outside.

They saunter through the crowd almost as though neither of them are ready to just shove their way through to the relative safety of the car waiting to take them home. Thor puts on a very convincing act, charming as ever as he winks at cameras and indulges in requests to pose with Loki. Thor kisses him too, in front of the crowd, and laughs when they catcall and wolf whistle.

Loki can feel him trembling though. When they get inside the car and Loki splays a hand on Thor’s chest, he can feel the wild beat of the man’s heart.

“Hey. Breathe, baby. Breathe. It’s over now, you can relax,” Loki tells him, kissing the corner of his mouth, “you did so well. I’m so proud of you.”

Thor takes a deep breath, shaky and stuttering on the way out, then another, then another still.

Loki rubs his chest and gives him encouragements as he works through his anxiety, works on not having a complete and full-blown panic attack - Thor hasn’t had one of those in a while, the last one being a couple of months ago already.

“That’s it, Thor. You’re doing really good, you’re okay.”

Thor nods, his eyes squeezed shut as he re-asserts control over his breathing. "I'm okay," he agrees after a moment. When he opens his eyes, Loki makes sure to give him a smile. 

"Still want to do this with me?" he asks, and once it might have been playful, but now it's dead serious. If Thor doesn't want to do it anymore, they won’t. They'll release studio albums and not tour. 

But Thor nods firmly. "I want to do this," he says. "I really do." 

And the fact he's working through it instead of running from it proves the truth of his words.

Loki gives the man another soft kiss to his brow, then to his lips, pride swelling inside of him for Thor. The older man is trying so, so hard, and he’s still giving it his all despite the things it brings up for him. Loki can’t say it enough,

“I’m so proud of you, cowboy.”

\- - - - - - -

The first few weeks of it are hell for Thor, Loki can tell.

He’s almost always wound up, a bit more irritable, a bit more sensitive, and he’s constantly having interruptions in his sleeping patterns. Loki is about to suggest calling it off, but then there’s a break in it one day, where Thor just gets up and gets ready, and smiles and says no when Loki asks if he needs a bit more time before they head out.

Loki would’ve worried, but Thor is genuine, and when he performs later that night for a small live show, it’s with a sincerity he’s been lacking for months now.

After, when they’re swarmed by a couple of people as they leave, Thor looks as though he’s shed the months of self-flagellation and loathing as he once again interacts with the fans.

Loki can only smile, loving the spark that’s slowly growing in Thor’s eyes.

This is who Thor could have been all along, but seeing it now is glorious. 

\---------

They keep writing on the road, like they used to except Thor drinks Red Bull and Coke and chews nicotine gum when he really needs a fix.

It's no less spectacular. It's better, even, because now they're on equal footing. Now they're partners, not just... a star and his fling. 

Loki couldn't be happier.

Loki crawls over Thor during one of their down times, straddling his lap and slumping over him. Thor’s hand automatically wraps around his waist to keep him steady, the man’s legs part to make space for Loki between them.

He has a pen in his hand and is bracing a notebook on the knee that’s propped up against the backrest of the couch they’re on, nibbling on his lip the way Loki knows is in contemplation.

“What you working on?” Loki asks, eyes closed as he settles more comfortable in Thor’s arms.

Thor doesn’t answer, and Loki repeats his question a bit louder.

“Hm? Sorry, it’s uh. It’s nothin’ special yet. Nothin’ concrete,” Thor says, and Loki pries his eyes open, raising an eyebrow when Thor meets his gaze. “I promise. Also, Hela said she’ll meet us at our next site.”

Loki knows the man is hiding something from him, but it doesn’t feel like something he should be worried about, so he plays along with the redirection,

“Mm. She should just resign from her client and manage us full-time.”

“I think she will, soon. If not, we’ll bug her.”

Loki snickers, closing his eyes again and sighing in contentment. When Thor starts rubbing his back and petting his hair, it isn’t long before Loki drifts off.

\- - - - - -


End file.
